Newsletter | Issue 16
March 1999
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A Note from the Chair Science Features Applications of Stable Isotopes in Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry |
What are the remaining questions to address?
A Note from the IGAC Chair: Guy Brasseur
IGAC was created approximately ten years ago and currently operates under the sponsorship of two parent organizations: the IAMAS Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (CACGP) and the International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme (IGBP) of ICSU. Little was known a decade ago about the role of the biosphere in global atmospheric chemistry, about the impact of human activities on the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere, about the importance of aerosols and chemically active gases in the climate system, or about the role of multiphase chemistry in the troposphere. During the past decade, a large number of projects and major field campaigns have been developed and completed with support from national and international funding agencies. Much progress has also been made through laboratory studies, network observations, data analysis, and modeling. Yet today many questions remain on the agenda of the atmospheric- biospheric chemistry community.
When a group of scientists gathered in Dookie, Australia in 1988 to identify the most pressing questions for the international atmospheric-biospheric chemistry community to address, they greatly influenced the design of many national programs focusing on atmospheric chemistry and established a projectIGACthat became an integral part of global change research. After ten years of uninterrupted work with many successes, and perhaps a few failures, time has come to address the following questions: What have we really learned over the last 10 years, and what are the remaining scientific questions? We must integrate our knowledge into a coherent framework of results that can be understood not only by experts, but also by decision-makers and the public.
IGAC is therefore initiating a major "integration and synthesis" effort that, hopefully, will engage a significant fraction of the atmosphericbiospheric chemistry community over the next 2 years or so. The purpose is to produce and publish a rather comprehensive report and other more specialized documents that will present and assess progress made not only through IGAC-sponsored research, but in the whole field. For this purpose, the contents of the report have been outlined by a group of about 25 scientists who met in Toulouse, France in November 1998. The chapters and the names of the lead authors for each are shown below. To the right is the proposed and very ambitious timetable for the preparation of the document. I want to emphasize that this integration and synthesis process is entirely open. Colleagues who would like to contribute are therefore strongly encouraged to contact the lead authors or Ms. Harriet Barker who will coordinate production of the report. The final draft of the document will be discussed and reviewed at a meeting to be held in Aspen, Colorado, USA, in late April early May, 2000. The final document will provide for the first time a truly international response to the questions raised at Dookie, and will benefit from several similar but somewhat limited efforts made at the national level.
In previous issues of the IGAC newsletter, we have attempted
to present a somewhat integrated view on several issues related
to the chemistry of the atmosphere and the influence of biospheric
processes. The present issue focuses on stable isotopes and their
importance for constraining global budgets of chemical elements
in the Earth system. In this area also, much progress has been
made over the last ten years.
