The Global Atmosphere Watch reactive gases measurement network

Kjetil Tørseth,Martin Steinbacher,Valerie Thouret,Stefan Gilge,Thomas B. Ryerson,Rainer Steinbrecher,Alastair C. Lewis,Hiroshi Koide,Brigitte Buchmann,Detlev Helmig,Ian E. Galbally,Christoph Zellweger,Martin G. Schultz,Hajime Akimoto,Paul C. Novelli,Jan Bottenheim,Christian Plass-Dülmer,Oksana Tarasova

doi:10.12952/journal.elementa.000067

Abstract

Long-term observations of reactive gases in the troposphere are important for understanding trace gas cycles and the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere, assessing impacts of emission changes, verifying numerical model simulations, and quantifying the interactions between short-lived compounds and climate change. The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program coordinates a global network of surface stations some of which have measured reactive gases for more than 40 years. Gas species included under this umbrella are ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). There are many challenges involved in setting-up and maintaining such a network over many decades and to ensure that data are of high quality, regularly updated and made easily accessible to users. This overview describes the GAW surface station network of reactive gases, its unique quality management framework, and discusses the data that are available from the central archive. Highlights of data use from the published literature are reviewed, and a brief outlook into the future of GAW is given. This manuscript constitutes the overview of a special feature on GAW reactive gases observations with individual papers reporting on research and data analysis of particular substances being covered by the program.

Highlights

Reactive gas species in the Earth’s lower atmosphere are a large group of substances with lifetimes between hours and a few months
Long-term observations of reactive gases in the troposphere are important for understanding trace gas cycles and the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere, assessing impacts of emission changes, verifying numerical model simulations, and quantifying the interactions between short-lived compounds and climate change.The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program coordinates a global network of surface stations some of which have measured reactive gases for more than 40 years
Gas species included under this umbrella are ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).There are many challenges involved in setting-up and maintaining such a network over many decades and to ensure that data are of high quality, regularly updated and made accessible to users

Summary

Introduction

Reactive gas species in the Earth’s lower atmosphere are a large group of substances with lifetimes between hours and a few months. Since 1989, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program provides a framework to support long-term consistent measurements of atmospheric constituents. The Global Atmosphere Watch network of reactive gases observations The majority of the authors of this paper are current and previous members of the GAW Scientific Advisory Group on reactive gases (SAG RG), who are advising on priorities and implementation of activities of the program They establish links between GAW and other regional and global monitoring and research networks, promote the use of GAW data and seek communication with data users.

The GAW quality management framework

Reactive gases measurements in GAW

Carbon monoxide

Non-methane volatile organic compounds

Nitrogen oxides

Other trace gases

Status of the GAW reactive gases data archive

Use of GAW data in science studies

Concluding remarks

Funding information

Data accessibility statement