Programme details

Pollution in the atmosphere has a number of origins. Among all the pollutants is CO2 a non visible green house gas which causes inevitable changes in climate.
The European Union has undertaken to reduce its emissions of CO2 and other gases with a greenhouse effect by 8% for 2008-2012. To meets its commitments and effectively observe the reduction in CO2 by means of accurate measurements, the Union has created CarboEurope, that groups fifteen scientific projects.

Carbo Europe

All European Union countries are involved in CarboEurope and the objective is being able to quantify carbon sink by vegetation. The European Union has made a commitment to reduce its emission of gases with a greenhouse effect by 8%. But the protocol also authorizes increasing the capacity to capture carbon by changing the use of green areas.
CarboEurope has developed a monitoring system to see whether the vegetation on the continent absorbs carbon dioxide or not, to show to what extent it does absorb this gas and finally to determine what are the consequences in the atmosphere.
CarboEurope is trying to get a clear vision of the whole process and the ways of controlling it. To manage this, the project works on three levels: local, regional and continental.

Local Measurement

Four years ago, the CEAM – Centro de Estudios Ambiantales del Mediterraneo –set up a number of collectors at the top of a tower in the Albufera natural reserve. The equipment installed on this tower gives information on the exchange of CO2 and water between the atmosphere and the vegetation.
33 similar towers are scattered all over European territory so that we can compare the different ecosystems using the same parameters.
The towers provide researchers with data on the overall exchange of CO2 between plant life and the atmosphere.
But scientists have gone further in their investigations, going to study photosynthesis, not at the level of the vegetation in general, as we do from the tower, but in small plants starting at the level of the individual leaf.
All these land-based data, combined with those from the tower, give important indications on the behaviour of the ecosystem, which are often different from our preconceived ideas. The flows of carbon dioxide vary with a number of parameters.

Regional Measurement

While local measurements give information about the CO2 fluxes, understanding where the carbon goes and how it affects the atmosphere are also important, this is the goal of the second approach at regional level.
With the Sky Arrow, the “smallest certified research aircraft in the world”, CO2 can be tracked on a regional scale. Its mission is to fly over the forests, just 15 m over the treetops, and also over agricultural zones.
The Sky Arrow has flown missions all over Europe. With the data it gathered and the data from the towers, scientists can programme computers to follow the dynamics of CO2 in the lower layers of the atmosphere. This is called modelization. Modelization helps understand the behaviour of carbon dioxide, by creating a model framework that integrates the data at local, regional and continental level.
Now, scientists are in a position to measure ambient flows with great accuracy over large territories.

Continental Measurement

Thanks to the CAARTER programme that gives scientists access to infrastructures that are not necessarily available to them in their home countries, CarboEurope flights are done all over Europe to gather information on a continental scale.
Air samples are taken at different altitudes in different places in Europe and analysed in laboratories to determine the concentration of gases with a greenhouse effect, and where they come from.

Conclusion

One of the most important aspects of this project is international collaboration. In all, there are no fewer than 80 institutions, 160 partners and 250 researchers involved in CarboEurope. This means that the European Union has a major lead over the United States and Japan, which are planning on launching similar projects.