Ocean, Ice, Atmosphere Seminar

Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere, i.e. CO2, CH4, and N2O, are important parameters for Earth's climate. Especially due to antropogenic emissions from the industrial era on, todays concentrations of CO2 and CH4 have reached enormeous levels which lead to rising mean global temperatures. Our visit on this planet might therefore be uncomfortable for all of us in the future. Understanding the processes, mainly detecting sources and sinks, is a current and future challenge. Global measurements of CO2, CH4, and N2O with sufficient accuracy is crucial in order to retrieve these parameters using inverse modelling. This is the primary goal of the EU project Evergreen. Our group as provider of SCIAMACHY CO2, CH4, and N2O, plays a key role in this project. An overview of the current status of the GHG retrieval using the vertical column retrieval algorithm WFM-DOAS and, additionally, first results showing CO plumes from biomass burning will be presented.