Atmosphere and Climate (ATMO)

ATMO was one the five former Helmholtz programs in the Research Field Earth and Environment from 2015 to 2020 (PoF III).

ATMO research contributed to the understanding of

  • the long-term atmospheric composition change and associated climate change
  • the degradation of air quality

occuring in response to

  • increasing anthropogenic forcings (emissions, land-use change)
  • biosphere-atmosphere-climate feedbacks
  • interactions with changes in the water cycle.

 

Program Topics

The program was structured into four topics:

  • PT-1. Cloud and Weather Research
  • PT-2. Land Surface Processes in the Climate System
  • PT-3. Tropospheric Trace Substances and their Transformations
  • PT-4. Composition and Dynamics of the Upper Troposphere and Middle Atmosphere

 

PT-1. Cloud and Weather Research

Subtopics
  • ST1. Clouds in a perturbed atmosphere
  • ST2. Process research for multiscale predictability of weather and climate and their impacts
Contributing Institutes
Spokespersons

 

PT-2. Land Surface Processes in the Climate System

Subtopics
  • ST.1 Effects of land use and climate change on regional matter fluxes
  • ST.2 Vegetation in the climate- and landuse system
  • ST.3 Regional climate- and water cycle variability
  • ST.4 Urban-rural interactions
  • ST.5 Atmospheric exchange processes in complex terrain
Contributing Institutes
Spokespersons

 

PT-3. Tropospheric Trace Substances and their Transformations

Subtopics
  • ST1. Long term observations of tropospheric composition change
  • ST2. Radical chemistry and atmospheric oxidation processes in the lower troposphere
  • ST3. Gas to particle conversion, particle formation and ageing
  • ST4. Global and regional impacts of atmospheric processes on tropospheric composition and climate
Contributing Institutes
Spokespersons

 

PT-4. Composition and Dynamics of the Upper Troposphere and Middle Atmosphere

Subtopics
  • ST1. Stratosphere-troposphere exchange
  • ST2. Cirrus clouds
  • ST3. Stratospheric ozone and climate change
  • ST4. Dynamic couplings
  • ST5. Trends, variability and large-scale processes
Contributing Institutes
Spokespersons