High-quality climate research in the Netherlands guaranteed by ICOS-nl

At Thursday August 18th 2011, eight knowledge institutes in The Netherlands launch their climate research partnership in the form of ICOS-nl. The launch will take place at the KNMI measurement mast in Cabauw.

The ICOS-nl partnership includes VU University Amsterdam, ECN, the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI), the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Alterra and the universities of Groningen, Utrecht and Wageningen. The institutes intend to participate in a Europe-wide ICOS project (Integrated Carbon Observing System). This project will establish a measurement infrastructure to perform research to quantify Europe’s greenhouse gas balance. The greenhouse gas balance is affected by both natural processes and human actions. However, there are major uncertainties in this balance and its future development. Continuous and consistent high-quality measurements using reliable equipment will help to provide more certainty about how and how much greenhouse gas enters the atmosphere and how much of it is absorbed by land or sea. The measurement results will serve as the basis for drawing conclusions and improving predictions of the greenhouse gas balance of Europe. They will also provide an important cornerstone for recommendations on appropriate measures to be taken and provide valuable feedback on the actual achievements in emission reductions. This way the ICOS high-quality measurements will help provide direction for policy relating to the greenhouse gas balance and climate change abatement policies.

The Netherlands in European climate research

ICOS is prioritising the importance of climate research and reliable information in order to help create a sustainable and climate-proof society. Currently, the Dutch knowledge institutes are at the forefront of climate research. They aim to continue and enhance this through their substantial participation in the European ICOS. Numerous countries, amongst which the Netherlands, have pledged their support for ICOS. The ICOS-nl plan will allow the Netherlands to provide its own contribution and the ICOS-nl partners will submit their research proposal to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) at the end of August.

At the Dutch launch of August 18th the results of monitoring and modeling efforts so far will be presented, together with the ambitions and opportunities for the future. ICOS-nl has plans to achieve all this with a growing number of business partners. Both ICOS-EU and ICOS-nl co-operates with the company Earth Networks Inc, as an international press release announced today. This American company is the owner and operator of the largest weather, lightning and climate observation network. The ICOS English press release is available at the website of Earth Networks.
At the ICOS-nl launch on August 18 the Earth Networks will give a presentation as well.

You can find more information about the project at www.icos-infrastructure.nl.

Contact person at ECN
Alex Vermeulen
Air Quality & Climate Change
ECN Biomass, Coal & Environmental research
E-mail a.vermeulen ecn.nl
Tel.no.: +31 (0)224–564194