Final Report Summary - ACCENT-PLUS (Atmospheric Composition Change: the European Network-Policy Support and Science)
Executive Summary:
Fragmentation of research efforts, lack of a shared scientific vision and insufficient availability of research tools, shared databases, etc., is a major limitation for the understanding of atmospheric composition change over Europe under a changing climate, and the consequent inadequate transfer of prospects to the decision makers for future policies. The ACCENT-Plus project builds on the successful efforts of the Network of Excellence ACCENT that has brought together the atmospheric science community engaged in global change and air pollution studies. ACCENT-Plus aims at extending the breath of the previous ACCENT phase to reach out to the policy community, facilitating the transfer of research results into policy/decision making.
The overarching question that ACCENT-Plus aims answering is: “How can Europe control the composition of its atmosphere under a changing climate?” A prerequisite to achieve this goal is to maintain the coordination and integration of the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change and to strengthen the outreach from the science domain into the policy arena and, where possible, to wider global decision making activities, by producing integrated assessment and synthesis and connecting science and policy making by transferring to the decision makers the important links between air quality and climate change and the prospects and benefits of co-control policies. ACCENT-Plus also aims at preserving and enhancing the excellence of European global change and air quality research within the European Research Area context.
At the end of the ACCENT-Plus project, a long-lasting co-operation and integration of European research institutions has been achieved, at the same time creating links with the other international research projects in the field of atmospheric composition change and climate. The project has also contributed to the two-way dialog with the policy community initiated within the ACCENT Network of Excellence (2004-2009). ACCENT-Plus has finally provided a synthesis of scientific results in a policy perspective on issues of primary importance for both air quality and climate: particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen cycle and methane. These topics are, in fact, closely related and efforts have been made to integrate the policy-related scientific findings, in a close dialogue with the relevant stakeholders.
Project Context and Objectives:
The ACCENT-Plus project builds on the successful efforts of the Network of Excellence ACCENT (Atmospheric Composition Change: the European Network) that over six years between 2004 and 2009 has brought together the atmospheric science community engaged in global change and air pollution studies. The integrating activities within the ACCENT Network have produced a stronger, more cohesive community, including research groups from the new EU Member States and have facilitated the engagement of a new generation of scientists who have started their career in the collaborative environment promoted by ACCENT.
The general initial concept for ACCENT-Plus, which notably retained the same acronym and logo of the previous phase to mark the strong continuity between the two projects, was to extend the breadth of ACCENT to reach out more strongly to the policy community to facilitate the transfer of research results into policy development and decision making.
A prerequisite to achieve this goal is to maintain the coordination and integration of the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change and to strengthen the outreach from the scientific synthesis of ACCENT into the policy arena, within the European Research Area (ERA) context and, where possible, to wider global decision making activities.
The networking/coordination actions that were implemented include:
• Involving the entire science community in the networking activity by associating with the new project the previous partners and associates of ACCENT;
• Contributing to the development of new structures and initiatives for atmospheric composition research in Europe;
• Organising a biennial gathering of the atmospheric composition research science community by continuing the series of Urbino Symposia established within the previous ACCENT Network of Excellence;
• Organising topical workshops on the relevant aspects of atmospheric composition change issues, with an appropriate synthesis for policy makers;
• Producing high profile review papers (ACCENT-Plus Topical Papers) on key topical issue from both scientific and policy perspectives and a policy oriented synthesis report.
• Maintaining and extending the ACCENT Web Portal including sharing of information, activity planning and outreach;
• Coordinating the efforts with the other FP7 projects funded within this field of science.
Considering that it is vital for the European science community to be represented within the international science programs and to be in the position of providing an authoritative contribution to their research agendas, ACCENT-Plus continued to support the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) project of IGBP by maintaining the European IGAC Office.
Integration and synthesis across global change problems received particular attention in order to develop the scientific, technological and socio-economic basis and tools necessary for understanding the environmental changes that may have a significant impact on Europe.
ACCENT-Plus was, in fact, designed, through the research efforts of the whole community, at answering the general question: “How can Europe control the composition of its atmosphere under a changing climate?” and to transfer the science results to the policy/decision making. Simple, authoritative and well-articulated documents were communicated to stakeholders to be used in support of the decision making process. A wide range of dissemination and training activities has also served the purpose to transfer this information to different levels of stakeholders.
Project Results:
1 ACCENT-Plus topical papers
One of the most relevant contributions of ACCENT-Plus to answer the general question: “How can Europe control the composition of its atmosphere under a changing climate?” in a policy context are the topical papers. In fact, a key output of ACCENT-Plus will be four scientific review papers (ACCENT-Plus Topical Papers) that present the latest understanding on key topical issues of both scientific and policy relevance. These topics are:
1. tropospheric ozone and its precursors at the regional and global scale and its importance for air quality and climate;
2. the global nitrogen cycle and its importance for air quality and climate;
3. the atmospheric methane budget now and through the current century, its importance in climate change and its wider role in atmospheric composition change;
4. particulate matter with emphasis on the formation and fate of aerosol particles and their role in air quality and climate.
Four international teams were established including ACCENT-Plus partners and associates, also from outside Europe. The scientific teams have drafted a first outline of the review papers that were widely discussed taking advantage of the wide series of international workshops organised or co-organised by the project (see par. 3.4 below) and within the two ACCENT-Plus Urbino Symposia.
At this point, an international expert workshop was organised for a final revision of the four papers before final submission to the international journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry within a Special Issue called “Atmospheric composition change: science for policy”, edited by G. Brasseur, U. Pöschl, S. Fuzzi, and M. Maione.
These four review papers follows a common format which includes: i) an up-to-date description of the state-of-the-art within the specific fields; ii) an evaluation of the policy implications of the specific issues; iii) an outlook to the evolution of the treated issues with respect to the environmental policies at the national, European and global scales. Another common feature of the four papers is the concept of air quality and climate change as “two sides of the same coin”. In spite of this, there is still a separation between air pollution and climate change in both the policy and scientific communities. This separation is reflected in the temporal and geographic scales of interest: air pollution efforts focus on the near-term and the local and regional scales, whereas climate change efforts focus on the long-term and global scale. As with many issues, there also exists a divide between the scientific and policy communities that hinders communication and understanding. These papers aim at breaking down these divides and clarify the synergies and trade-offs of research and mitigation efforts across a spectrum of air pollution and climate change policies.
More specifically, the four papers address the following scientific/policy issues:
i. Ozone. The atmospheric emissions and concentration of major ozone precursors have decreased significantly over the last two decades. The changes in emissions have reduced peak ozone concentrations, but the mean concentrations have increased. Why has the ozone concentration not decreased more substantially in Europe? How well do we understand the cause of increases in background ozone? Are the trends in background ozone sufficiently well understood to be confident of the future ozone climate of Europe? How well do we understand the interactions between tropospheric ozone and the expected changes in climate through the 21st century?
ii. Particulate Matter. How well are we able to quantify the sources concentrations and composition of particulate matter in Europe? What species/types of aerosols should be regulated, what are the most damaging compounds? What is the importance of primary versus secondary aerosols for health and climate change? What is the combined impact of the different types of aerosols (sulphates, nitrates, BC, OC, secondary) on climate? What is the impact of changes in the concentrations of different types of particles on clouds and precipitation? Can win-win strategies to address climate and air quality issues be developed and implemented over Europe?
iii. Methane. The trends in global atmospheric methane since the early 1990s have fluctuated substantially between years with growth in atmospheric mixing ratios in some years and declines in others, and while there are several hypotheses to explain the trends, none have been shown to be adequate to explain the observations. Thus the IPCC 5th assessment concludes that we do not understand the changes in global methane sources and sinks over this period. The paper includes an examination of the chemical sinks in the atmosphere as well as the oxidation sink in soils and natural and anthropogenic sources. These are necessary to show how methane concentrations are likely to change in the future and how climate changes will feed back onto sources and sinks of atmospheric methane.
iv. Nitrogen Cycle. How well do we understand the global cycle of fixed nitrogen compounds? What is the impact of agriculture (food production) on the global and regional nitrogen budget? What is the impact of nitrogen compounds on aerosols? How will climate change impact emissions, atmospheric processing, concentrations and deposition of nitrogen compounds, and what is the likely impact on food production? How are nitrogen levels changing in cities/megacities and what is the impact on health? The human modification of the nitrogen cycle has a profound effect on the carbon cycle, but how well is this quantified at global and regional scales?
Three of these papers are already published in Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Discussions waiting for final publication after peer review:
a. Tropospheric ozone and its precursors from the urban to the global scale from air quality to short-lived climate forcer. P. S. Monks, A. T. Archibald, A. Colette, O. Cooper, M. Coyle, R. Derwent, D. Fowler, C. Granier, K. S. Law, D. S. Stevenson, O. Tarasova, V. Thouret, E. von Schneidemesser, R. Sommariva, O. Wild, and M. L. Williams. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 14, 32709-32933, 2014.
b. Particulate matter, air quality and climate: lessons learned and future needs. S. Fuzzi, U. Baltensperger, K. Carslaw, S. Decesari, H. Denier van der Gon, M. C. Facchini, D. Fowler, I. Koren, B. Langford, U. Lohmann, E. Nemitz, S. Pandis, I. Riipinen, Y. Rudich, M. Schaap, J. Slowik, D. V. Spracklen, E. Vignati, M. Wild, M. Williams, and S. Gilardoni. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 15, 521-744, 2015.
c. Effects of global change during the 21st century on the nitrogen cycle. D. Fowler, C. E. Steadman, D. Stevenson, M. Coyle, R. M. Rees, U. M. Skiba, M. A. Sutton, J. N. Cape, A. J. Dore, M. Vieno, D. Simpson, S. Zaehle, B. D. Stocker, M. Rinaldi, M. C. Facchini, C. R. Flechard, E. Nemitz, M. Twigg, J. W. Erisman, and J. N. Galloway. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 15, 1747-1868, 2015.
The paper of methane is still lagging behind and submission is foreseen in May 2015.
2 Air quality review.
One of the main S&T results of ACCENT-Plus, not initially foreseen at the beginning of the project, is of the synthesis report commissioned by DG Research “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review”, with leading authors: D. Fowler, B. Brunekreef, S. Fuzzi, S. Gilardoni, P.S. Monks, M.A. Sutton, S. Reis, G.P. Brasseur and R. Friedrich.
This report provides a summary of the policy relevant messages from the research and monitoring communities as an input to the EU Air policy implementation and review process. The approach in distilling the messages has been to provide a minimum of background science as context, explain the message simply and identify what remains unclear or not understood to show the levels of confidence of further policy actions. Lastly we identify further research needs to address these uncertainties.
The aim of the EU Air policy implementation and review process is to provide: “a robust EU Clean Air package, updating existing policies and directives including the National Emission Ceilings Directive according to latest science, and outlining further cost-effective measures to move much closer to the related 6EAP’s objective: to achieve levels of air quality that do not result in unacceptable impacts on, and risks to, human health and the environment.” This process therefore requires an understanding of the messages from research and monitoring activities throughout Europe and developments in the wider global science community. The review, focuses on research and assessment activities within Europe and has the following two objectives:
1. to identify key scientific messages relevant for the revision and implementation of EU Air Quality legislation;
2. to identify limitations to knowledge and emerging issues.
The review was coordinated by the European Commission - Directorate General for Research & Innovation with contributions from the JRC, DG ENV, DG SANCO, the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The hearth of the report has been produced involving 54 leading European scientists, representing 30 European FP6 and FP7 research projects.
The wider global literature has been used to provide a wider perspective and context for the review. Air Quality directives, the National emissions ceilings directives and the UNECE Gothenburg protocol provided the main control instruments.
The report has been elaborated through a very intensive consultation process that took a little over a year from Start Oct 2011-to complete Jan 2013. The preliminary results have been presented to the group of stakeholders chaired by DG ENVIRONMENT.
The chapters are recognisably the product of scientists, the messages are not policy prescriptive and do not necessarily take into account the complexity of the political process involved in the revision process, being this the nature of science. The policy messages are broad, and consider effects on human health, ecosystems and climate.
The Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn wrote the introduction to the Report, emphasizing that “… particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen oxides are, today, the most important air pollutants in Europe, posing serious risks to human health and the environment, in particular for their impact on climate change …”. Furthermore stating, “…research is at the very heart of the process launched by the European Commission to undertake a full revision of its air quality policy …”.
The Report, edited and printed by ACCENT-Plus was published in June 2013 and launched at the European Green Week (4-7 June 2013).
3 Urbino Symposia
Continuing the successful series of the ACCENT Urbino Symposia, ACCENT-Plus organised two biennial conferences involving the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change.
• The first ACCENT-Plus Symposium (third of the Urbino series), held on 13 -16 September 2011, was entitled "Air Quality and Climate Change: Interactions and Feedbacks", reflecting the main theme of ACCENT-Plus. The Symposium provided a unique opportunity and focus for research. The goals of this conference were to promote the integration and collaboration of the relevant scientific communities and to establish a constructive interaction with policy-makers. A close link with the most important international activities/projects has also been established, especially in the frame of the opening session where the representative of the most important FP7 projects and of international bodies and/or initiatives dealing with climate change and air quality, draw the attention on how science can best support policy. The Symposium has been organised in plenary oral and poster sessions. The topics of the sessions were: i) Methane, air quality and climate, ii) Ozone, air quality and climate, iii) Nitrogen cycle, benefits and threats, iv) Particulate matter, climate and water cycle, and v) Air quality & health (human and ecosystems). Ca. 120 delegates, representing research institutions from all over the world, attended the Symposium. Thanks to the contribution of the European Space Agency and of the WMO, it has been possible to support the attendance of 20 young scientists, some of which from developing countries like China and India. The extended abstracts of 52 out of the 120 scientific contributions presented (either as posters or oral) have been collected and published in the ACCENT-Plus web portal.
• The second ACCENT-Plus Symposium, Urbino, 17- 20 September 2013, was entitled “Bringing together the European Research in atmospheric composition change, Challenges for the next decade”. The goals of the conference were to promote the integration and collaboration of the relevant European funded projects in the field of Atmospheric Composition Change that collaborated in the organisation of the specific sessions. The EU FP7 projects involved were PEGASOS, ECLAIRE, ECLIPSE, ACTRIS, InGOS, APPRAISAL and SEFIRA. The link with the most important international activities/projects (e.g. iCACGP, IGAC, iLEAPS, SOLAS, GAW, etc.) ensured exchange with the international (extra-European) scientific community. The Symposium has been organised in plenary oral and poster sessions. The topics of the sessions were: 1) Improving observational capacities (aerosol and reactive gases); 2) Climate change, air pollution and ecosystems; 3) Short lived pollutants, climate and air quality; 4) Improving observational capacities (greenhouse gases); 5) Atmospheric composition research, the next decade; 6) Gas-aerosols climate interaction; 7) Integrated assessment. Ca. 100 delegates, representing research institutions from all over the world, attended the Symposium. Thanks to the contribution of the WMO, it has been possible to support the attendance of 15 young scientists, some of which from developing countries like China and India. The extended abstracts of the scientific contributions are published in the ACCENT-Plus web portal.
4 ACCENT-Plus topical workshops
ACCENT-Plus has organised (or co-organised) a series of workshops on topical issues relevant to atmospheric composition change that have provided input to the preparation of the ACCENT-Plus topical papers.
• Session on "The effect of reactive nitrogen emissions on atmospheric chemistry drivers of climate change", organised by ACCENT-Plus within the International Conference Nitrogen and Global Change: Key Findings - Future Challenges, held in Edinburgh on April 11-15, 2011. The lectures presented at the ACCENT-Plus session covered interactions between climate and the processes regulating the exchange of nitrogen compounds between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere.
• Workshop "Reaching International Cooperation on Climate Change Mitigation", co-organised with the Tel Aviv Law School and the Chicago School of Law on December 21-23, 2011. The workshop directly addressed the questions of climate policy, discussions between the developed and developing world. In this workshop an important connection was realised between natural and social scientists. Common topics and gaps between the communities were identified and the possibilities to explore new directions for climate policy were discussed.
• Technical workshop "Source apportionment of particulate matter” co-organized with the European Commission-Joint Research Centre, Ispra, 27-28 February 2013. The main objectives of the workshop were to discuss the progress of the harmonization activity carried out within the framework of the JRC Initiative on Receptor Models in collaboration with FAIRMODE and AQUILA.
• Workshop “Pollution studied by Remote Sensing of Conurbation/megacities and REtrieved from observations made by Instrumentation on space BasEd platforms” (PRESCRIBE), held in Bremen 15-16 May 2013. The workshop builds on three decades of international efforts to understand the impact of mega-cities on tropospheric chemistry, and specifically on remote sensing research, which has pioneered the study of tropospheric trace constituents and aerosols from space.
5 European IGAC Office and related international activities
An essential task for ACCENT-Plus has been the contribution to the research agendas of international atmospheric science. In this context, ACCENT-Plus has continued to support the European IGAC office, which is established at the ACCENT-Plus Coordinator's Institution. IGAC, in fact, provided the international context for ACCENT-Plus science and policy orientated output, fostering international collaboration on the role of atmospheric chemistry in climate change and the impact of changing emissions, deposition, long-range transport, and transformations on atmospheric chemical composition and air quality and as such is closely aligned to the science and policy goals of ACCENT-Plus.
ACCENT-Plus is directly participating in the management of IGAC with three members of the IGAC Steering Committee, including one of the two Co-chairs.
Through the European IGAC Office, ACCENT-Plus has supported the participation of European scientists to various co-sponsored activities.
Among the most important activities that ACCENT-Plus has been involved through the European IGAC Office, it is worth mentioning:
• Air Pollution & Climate: A Science-Policy Dialogue. This activity, sponsored by IGBP, seeks to open a science-policy dialogue on the air pollution and climate change challenge. There is still a separation between air pollution and climate change in both the policy and scientific communities. This separation is reflected in the temporal and geographic scales of interest: air pollution efforts focus on the near-term and the local and regional scales, whereas climate change efforts focus on the long-term and global scale. As with many issues, there also exists a divide between the scientific and policy communities that hinders communication and understanding. The aim of the Air Pollution and Climate Initiative is to break down these divides and clarify the synergies and trade-offs of research and mitigation efforts across a spectrum of air pollution and climate change policies.
• Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative (CCMI). This joint IGAC/SPARC Initiative (CCMI) was established to coordinate future chemistry-climate model evaluation and associated modelling activities. Increasingly, the chemistry and dynamics of the stratosphere and troposphere are being studied and modelled as a single entity in global models. As evidence, in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5), several groups performed simulations in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) using global models with interactive chemistry spanning the surface through the stratosphere and above. In addition, tropospheric and stratospheric global chemistry-climate models are continuously being challenged by new observations and process analyses. Some recent intercomparison exercises have for example highlighted shortcomings in our understanding and/or modelling of long-term ozone trends and methane lifetime.
• Global Emissions Initiative (GEIA). GEIA is a community effort that builds bridges between environmental science and policy, by bringing together people, data, and tools to create and communicate the highest quality information about emissions. GEIA seeks to enhance access to emissions data, facilitate analysis to improve the scientific basis for emissions information, and strengthen the emissions community. In fact, quantification of chemical emissions into the air is a key step in explaining observed variability and trends in atmospheric composition and in attributing these observed changes to their causes on local to global scales. Accurate emissions data are necessary to identify feasible controls that reduce adverse impacts associated with air quality and climate, to track the success of implemented policies, and to estimate future impacts.
ACCENT-Plus also participated to a smaller extent to the IGAC-supported activities Air-Ice Chemical Interactions (AICI), Halogens in the Troposphere (HitT) and Interdisciplinary Biomass Burning Initiative (IBBI).
Last but not least, ACCENT-Plus had an important role in the organization of:
• The session “Atmospheric composition in a changing world: scientific knowledge and uncertainty” of the IGBP Planet Under Pressure 2012 Conference, the largest gathering of global change scientists leading up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), London, 26-29 March, 2012.
• 12th IGAC Open Science Conference “Atmospheric Chemistry in the Anthropocene”, held on 17nd-21st September, 2012, in Beijing, China, addressing the critical interactions between the atmosphere and human activities in an era where humans have fundamentally altered the composition and chemistry of our atmosphere.
• 13th Quadrennial iCACGP Symposium and 13th IGAC Science Conference “Changing Chemistry in a Changing World”, held on 22nd-26th September, 2014, in the city of Natal, in north-eastern Brazil, addressing the critical interactions between the atmosphere and human activities that keep changing with our changing world.
6 ACCENT-Plus Summer School and MACC Summer School
One of the aims of the ACCENT-Plus coordinated action is the contribution to the development of a skilled generation of scientists through the organisation of Summer Schools.
Along the duration of the project, ACCENT-Plus contributed to the organisation of the MACC Summer School and organised the ACCENT-Plus one.
• MACC Summer School, Anglet, France, 9-16 June 2013: ACCENT Plus co-organised the MACC-II (Modelling Atmospheric Composition and Climate) project Summer School "Modelling and Forecasting of Atmospheric Composition at Different Scales" for early-career scientists, users of MACC-II products and data providers. ACCENT-Plus partners have given lectures at the school and have helped in the preparation of the different activities of the school.
• ACCENT-Plus Summer School, Urbino, Italy, 22-29 June 2014: ACCENT-Plus organised a Summer School on “Atmospheric Composition Change: Drivers, Feedbacks and Impacts in Air Quality and Climate”. The main aim of the Summer School was to educate and provide the participants with the necessary background scientific knowledge to understand the current issues related to the drivers, impacts and feedback between atmospheric chemistry and climate change, being this is required for research as well as in the formulation of environmental policies. The School comprised lectures on the fundamentals of atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry as well on the impact of atmospheric composition change on air quality, human health, ecosystems, agriculture and the feedback with climate. Lectures on the scientific diagnostic tools used to test our understanding and make predictions, viz. the observation of atmospheric composition and meteorological parameters and atmospheric modelling were included. In addition, studies of policy documents and lectures on how to improve one's communication have been organised. The students have also had the opportunity to perform practical work, like e.g. analysing atmospheric data collected during school, using emission data base, analysing time series of surface as well as satellite data, but also how to write a press release or how to give an interview. The teachers included scientists from the ACCENT-Plus network but also specialists in specific fields, like i.e. epidemiology, communication, and integrated assessment, enrolled outside the consortium. Sixty PhD students or early stage researchers from all over the word attended the school. Most of them are from Europeans but all the continents were represented with students coming from North and South America, Africa, Australia and Asia.
7 Research-policy stakeholder meeting
A stakeholder dialogue meeting was convened in Brussels to present the findings of the ACCENT+ synthesis and related EC funded projects to a broad range of stakeholders from the Air Quality and Climate Change science, policy and industry community. The meeting was held at the Belgian Academy of Sciences in Brussels on Tuesday 2nd December 2014.
A presentation of the results of the main EC-funded projects in the domain of atmospheric composition changes was followed by a panel discussion with the stakeholders in attendance. The main points concerned: i) short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) and CO2; ii) local vs. regional control measures; iii) European vs. hemispheric or global control measures; iv) high-impact weather and the water cycle; v) issues in integrating air quality and climate change policies; vi) possible co-benefits for air quality/climate change integrated policy; vii) integration of natural sciences and social sciences in air quality and climate in air quality/climate change policies.
The following points briefly summarise the main points of the discussion.
• Climate change and air pollution are two (equally) important global environmental problems for society;
• Impacts of air pollution involve human health, ecosystems and on climate;
• 3.5 millions die prematurely globally each year due to air pollution (WHO);
• The policy approaches to reduce air pollution and climate change have not been sufficiently connected. Other co-benefits (water, soils, etc.) should be considered;
• Air quality is not only an issue for developing countries: it is still a problem for Europe;
• A large number of (local) measures can help to protect climate and air quality; often people ask for immediate measures that favour air quality over long-term climate measures, however, both CO2 and reactive gas emissions need to be mitigated.
• Several regions/environments are particularly vulnerable to climate change and air pollution, especially the Arctic regions for: a) Arctic air degradation (from European and Russian sources); b) transportation and tourism (new routes); c) fisheries; d) resource extraction.
In terms of the main drivers of air quality/climate change, the conclusions of the discussion concerned four main components.
• Aerosols (PM) – i) concentrations above legal thresholds remain a major issue in several regions of Europe (e.g. Po Valley); ii) human health impacts of PM are substantial, even if the biological/chemical mechanisms are not really understood; iii) monitoring of PM1 should be considered in the future for better integrating human health/climate change issues.
• Ozone – i) is a persistent (unsolved) problem; peaks have been reduced by past policy measures, but background values have increased; ii) is a hemispheric problem that needs an international approach; iii) importance of heavy localized source of pollutants and of atmospheric methane trends; iv) gas flaring and fracking represent a new threat.
• Ammonia – i) is a key precursor of aerosol particle formation; ii) affects air quality, greenhouse balance, water quality, etc.; iii) emissions will increase with global warming; iv) is produced as a result of inefficient agricultural practices (fertilizers) and there seem to be policy barrier to reduce emissions and a strong lobby against measures; v) ozone increase leads to higher use of fertilizers and higher ammonia emissions.
• Pollens and other allergens – i) airborne pollens are a key health problem with huge economic impacts; ii) allergenic effects are exacerbated by bad air quality; iii) the issue will become more prominent with climate change.
Ideas for the road ahead in the integration of science and policy for contrasting air quality deterioration and climate change were also discussed.
• There have been very successful programs developed and sponsored by international organizations (FP6, FP7, H2020 by the EC, GAW by WMO, HTAP by LRTAP and others).
• The EU has played a leading role in reducing emissions.
• A vibrant research program, including fundamental research, monitoring activities, modelling and predictions remains a necessity if Europe wants to remain at the forefront in this field.
• The complex problems call for integrated approaches.
• At the same time, the service function of science in support of society will be growing in importance. The research approaches will change, become more and more integrative and will require a sustained dialogue with users and other stakeholders.
Potential Impact:
1 Impact
ACCENT-Plus has continued and further improved the long-lasting co-operation and integration of European research institutions which have taken part in the previous phase of ACCENT and ha also created links with the other relevant research projects funded by the European Commission in the field of atmospheric composition change and climate.
The integration of the science community has taken place in areas as: i) research programming, ii) joint development and use of data bases, iii) training and mobility of researchers, iv) joint programming and use of infrastructures. To accomplish these goals, also taking into account the own limited resources that ACCENT-Plus has had access to, a strong link with other relevant European research efforts, namely, the large scale project funded by the Commission, the I3 infrastructure projects approved. The linkage with these projects has favoured joint activities within the coordination of research, thus allowing a more rational use of the resources, avoiding duplicate efforts.
ACCENT-Plus, through its integration efforts, has strengthened the position of Europe as an international leader in atmospheric composition research, able to steer research agendas through its involvement in major international programmes and capable of reinforcing European environmental policy-making. This is certainly an important step forward to the creation of the European Research Area in the field of global change.
The links already started during the first phase of ACCENT with international programs such as IGBP, its core projects and the atmospheric component of the WMO programs, have also continued and strengthened.
One of the most relevant contributions of ACCENT-Plus in a policy context are the four scientific review papers (ACCENT-Plus Topical Papers) that present the latest understanding on key topical issues of both scientific and policy relevance: i) tropospheric ozone and its precursors at the regional and global scale and its importance for air quality and climate; ii) the global nitrogen cycle and its importance for air quality and climate; iii) the atmospheric methane budget now and through the current century, its importance in climate change and its wider role in atmospheric composition change; iv) particulate matter with emphasis on the formation and fate of aerosol particles and their role in air quality and climate. These papers, submitted to the international journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, and prepared by a large interdisciplinary team of scientists will for sure have a great impact on the international science arena in the field of atmospheric composition change.
The main aim of ACCENT-Plus was to foster the two-way dialog with the policy community initiated within ACCENT. The overall objective was, in fact, to provide a synthesis of scientific results in a policy perspective on the above four issues of primary importance for both air quality and climate: particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen cycle, methane. These topics are, in fact, closely related and efforts will be made to integrate the policy-related scientific findings, in a close dialogue with the relevant stakeholders.
In this respect, an initiative that has had an important impact on the policy of the European Commission DG Environment has been the synthesis report commissioned by DG Research “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review”.
This report provides a summary of the policy relevant messages from the research and monitoring communities as an input to the EU Air policy implementation and review process.
The review, focuses on research and assessment activities within Europe and has identified: i) the key scientific messages relevant for the revision and implementation of EU Air Quality legislation and ii) the limitations to knowledge and emerging issues.
The review was coordinated by the European Commission - Directorate General for Research & Innovation with contributions from the JRC, DG ENV, DG SANCO, the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The heart of the report has been produced involving 54 leading European scientists, representing 30 European FP6 and FP7 research projects. The messages provided in the report are not policy prescriptive and do not necessarily take into account the complexity of the political process involved in the revision process, this is the nature of science. The policy messages are broad, and consider effects on human health, ecosystems and climate.
The Report, edited and printed by ACCENT-Plus was published in June 2013 and launched at the European Green Week (Brussels, 4-7 June 2013).
2 Dissemination
Changes in atmospheric composition directly affect many aspects of the environment, driving climate changes, affecting air quality and influencing atmospheric inputs to ecosystems. As a consequence, these changes strongly affect the fundamental necessities for human existence, like human health, food production, and availability of water. The importance of communicating results of scientific research in the field of atmospheric composition change lies in that people need more information to better understand the complexity of atmospheric processes, and, as a consequence, to develop behavioural patterns that can help in reducing the emissions of compounds that can affect both air quality and climate.
The main problems in communicating science to non scientists are i) atmospheric sciences are difficult for the public to be interpreted, ii) frequently scientists receive relatively little training in communication, iii) uncertainties are frequently affecting the understanding of atmospheric processes, whereas clear political and social decisions are required. Target groups for communication in the field are policy makers, teachers, students in schools, colleges and universities, and the general public that, in turn, produces pressure on the policy makers. Within ACCENT-Plus actions were undertaken to address all the mentioned target groups. However, policy makers have been by far the most prominent target group, as the contribution of the scientific research to the development of environmental policies is the core activity of ACCENT-Plus.
For this, the ACCENT-Plus web portal has sections dedicated to outreach activities. In particular, the access to the ACCENT magazine on Climate Change, developed within the first ACCENT phase, that demonstrated to be a useful tool for disseminating scientific results to undergraduate students and to the general public was maintained and further developed. As the magazine is available in several languages, the problem related to fragmentation due to language barriers when communicating to the public is overcome. Moreover, the ACCENT-Plus web portal provide an easy access to documents (presentations, videos, web resources) to be used by the scientific community when preparing presentations addressed to non-scientists.
The ACCENT-Plus summer school “Drivers, Feedbacks and Impacts in Air Quality and Climate Change”, was aimed at developing a skilled generation of scientists and policymakers who understand the issues related to climate change and their relation to atmospheric chemistry. The summer school has assembled a group of natural and social scientists addressing questions at the interface between physical, chemical, biological, social and political sciences. Moreover, professional lecturers in this field gave lectures on communication of scientific results to non-scientists, thus overcoming the fact that scientists generally lack professional recognition for engaging with the public.
The two ACCENT-Plus symposia: “Air Quality and Climate Change: Interactions and Feedbacks” (2011) and “Bringing together the European Research in atmospheric composition change. Challenges for the next decade” (2013) did not only gather the wider European scientific community, but also involved relevant policy-makers and the general public.
As already said, the main aims of ACCENT-Plus were to transfer the science results to the policy/decision making and to act as a link between science and policy making by transferring to the decision makers the important links between air quality and climate change and the prospects and benefits of co-control policies. In this context, the above described report “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review” is a simple, authoritative and well articulated dissemination tool, appropriate for the policy-makers readership, The document has been the result of a process involving the whole European science community in the field.
Finally, an important dissemination action of ACCENT-Plus has been the Research-Policy Stakeholder Meeting held at the Royal Academy of Sciences, Brussels on December 2nd, 2014. This meeting, organised in collaboration with the other European Commission supported projects ATOPICA, PEGASOS, MACC, ECLAIRE and ECLIPSE, addressed science/policy issues of relevance for government, public administration and the corporate world. The discussion included representatives of the European Commission, the Word Health Organization (WHO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the European Environment Agency (EEA).
3. ACCENT-Plus self assessment
The assessment of the project and the impact of the project results can be analysed with the quantitative performance indicators indicated in the DoW at the start of the project.
3.1 Number of scientific publications. ACCENT-Plus is a coordinated action that, as such, has limited space for research activities. The four ACCENT-Plus topical papers (one still in preparation) are the direct scientific outcome of the project. These papers present the latest understanding on key issues of both scientific and policy relevance within the subjects of air quality, climate change and their interactions. The papers have a strong policy component. A letter was also published in the Nature Correspondence by the ACCENT-Plus Community on “European pollution: Investigate smog to inform policy” by P.S. Monks et al.. Further to these direct scientific outcome, several scientific papers by partners/associates to the project acknowledge the contribution by ACCENT-Plus in facilitating their research efforts through its integration and outreach activities.
3.2 Number of strategic reports. By far the most important strategic report resulting from ACCENT-Plus is the synthesis commissioned by DG Research “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review” that provides a summary of the policy relevant messages from the research and monitoring communities as an input to the EU Air policy implementation and review process. Other major science/policy reports from ACCENT-Plus activities are: i) Report on the second international workshop on tropospheric ozone changes; ii) Pollution studied by REmote Sensing of Conurbations/urban conglomerations/megacities and Retrieved from observations made by Instrumentation on space BasEd platforms – PRESCRIBE. Through the IGAC European Office, ACCENT-Plus has also contributed to the strategic IGBP Report “Air Pollution & Climate: A Science-Policy Dialogue”. Last but not least, two ACCENT-Plus scientists have taken part to the preparation of the 5th IPCC Report “Climate Change 2013 – The Physical Science Basis”.
3.3 ACCENT-Plus Web portal statistics. The ACCENT-Plus web portal is the main tool for communication inside and outside the ACCENT-Plus community. Since the beginning of the project 291 articles have been published on the web portal. Over four years, the web portal received 76.500 page views from users from all over the world.
3.4 Training courses and knowledge distributed via web. ACCENT-Plus has directly organised/co-organised two summer schools: i) the MACC Summer School for early-career scientists, users of MACC-II products and data providers; ii) ACCENT-Plus Summer School, to provide the participants with the necessary background to understand the current issues related to the drivers, impacts and feedback between atmospheric chemistry and climate change, for research as well as in the formulation of environmental policies. Furthermore, ACCENT-Plus has supported many European young scientists to attend important international meetings, thus contributing to their education/training; Four e-learning modules are available through the ACCENT-Plus web portal under the heading “outreach and education”.
3.5 Interaction with policy makers. ACCENT-Plus has had two main series of interactions with policy makers in connection with the preparation of the report “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review” during which step by step discussions with relevant stakeholders took place to shape up the subsequent drafts of the report. Furthermore, the outcome of ACCENT-Plus as a whole and those of other relevant European Commission supported projects were presented and discussed with stakeholders at the research-policy stakeholder meeting organised in Brussels at the end of the project. In addition, the two ACCENT-Plus symposia did not only gather the wider European scientific community, but also involved relevant policy-makers and the general public.
List of Websites:
http://www.accent-network.org
Coordinator:
Dr. Sandro Fuzzi
Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Via Gobetti 101
40129 Bologna, Italy
tel. +39 051 639 9559
fax: +39 051 639 9647
s.fuzzi@isac.cnr.it
Project Office:
Prof. Michela Maione
Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo"
DiSBeF - Sezione di Scienze Chimiche
Piazza Rinascimento 6
61029 Urbino - Italy
tel. +39 0722 303316
fax: +39 0722 303311
michela.maione@uniurb.it
Fragmentation of research efforts, lack of a shared scientific vision and insufficient availability of research tools, shared databases, etc., is a major limitation for the understanding of atmospheric composition change over Europe under a changing climate, and the consequent inadequate transfer of prospects to the decision makers for future policies. The ACCENT-Plus project builds on the successful efforts of the Network of Excellence ACCENT that has brought together the atmospheric science community engaged in global change and air pollution studies. ACCENT-Plus aims at extending the breath of the previous ACCENT phase to reach out to the policy community, facilitating the transfer of research results into policy/decision making.
The overarching question that ACCENT-Plus aims answering is: “How can Europe control the composition of its atmosphere under a changing climate?” A prerequisite to achieve this goal is to maintain the coordination and integration of the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change and to strengthen the outreach from the science domain into the policy arena and, where possible, to wider global decision making activities, by producing integrated assessment and synthesis and connecting science and policy making by transferring to the decision makers the important links between air quality and climate change and the prospects and benefits of co-control policies. ACCENT-Plus also aims at preserving and enhancing the excellence of European global change and air quality research within the European Research Area context.
At the end of the ACCENT-Plus project, a long-lasting co-operation and integration of European research institutions has been achieved, at the same time creating links with the other international research projects in the field of atmospheric composition change and climate. The project has also contributed to the two-way dialog with the policy community initiated within the ACCENT Network of Excellence (2004-2009). ACCENT-Plus has finally provided a synthesis of scientific results in a policy perspective on issues of primary importance for both air quality and climate: particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen cycle and methane. These topics are, in fact, closely related and efforts have been made to integrate the policy-related scientific findings, in a close dialogue with the relevant stakeholders.
Project Context and Objectives:
The ACCENT-Plus project builds on the successful efforts of the Network of Excellence ACCENT (Atmospheric Composition Change: the European Network) that over six years between 2004 and 2009 has brought together the atmospheric science community engaged in global change and air pollution studies. The integrating activities within the ACCENT Network have produced a stronger, more cohesive community, including research groups from the new EU Member States and have facilitated the engagement of a new generation of scientists who have started their career in the collaborative environment promoted by ACCENT.
The general initial concept for ACCENT-Plus, which notably retained the same acronym and logo of the previous phase to mark the strong continuity between the two projects, was to extend the breadth of ACCENT to reach out more strongly to the policy community to facilitate the transfer of research results into policy development and decision making.
A prerequisite to achieve this goal is to maintain the coordination and integration of the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change and to strengthen the outreach from the scientific synthesis of ACCENT into the policy arena, within the European Research Area (ERA) context and, where possible, to wider global decision making activities.
The networking/coordination actions that were implemented include:
• Involving the entire science community in the networking activity by associating with the new project the previous partners and associates of ACCENT;
• Contributing to the development of new structures and initiatives for atmospheric composition research in Europe;
• Organising a biennial gathering of the atmospheric composition research science community by continuing the series of Urbino Symposia established within the previous ACCENT Network of Excellence;
• Organising topical workshops on the relevant aspects of atmospheric composition change issues, with an appropriate synthesis for policy makers;
• Producing high profile review papers (ACCENT-Plus Topical Papers) on key topical issue from both scientific and policy perspectives and a policy oriented synthesis report.
• Maintaining and extending the ACCENT Web Portal including sharing of information, activity planning and outreach;
• Coordinating the efforts with the other FP7 projects funded within this field of science.
Considering that it is vital for the European science community to be represented within the international science programs and to be in the position of providing an authoritative contribution to their research agendas, ACCENT-Plus continued to support the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) project of IGBP by maintaining the European IGAC Office.
Integration and synthesis across global change problems received particular attention in order to develop the scientific, technological and socio-economic basis and tools necessary for understanding the environmental changes that may have a significant impact on Europe.
ACCENT-Plus was, in fact, designed, through the research efforts of the whole community, at answering the general question: “How can Europe control the composition of its atmosphere under a changing climate?” and to transfer the science results to the policy/decision making. Simple, authoritative and well-articulated documents were communicated to stakeholders to be used in support of the decision making process. A wide range of dissemination and training activities has also served the purpose to transfer this information to different levels of stakeholders.
Project Results:
1 ACCENT-Plus topical papers
One of the most relevant contributions of ACCENT-Plus to answer the general question: “How can Europe control the composition of its atmosphere under a changing climate?” in a policy context are the topical papers. In fact, a key output of ACCENT-Plus will be four scientific review papers (ACCENT-Plus Topical Papers) that present the latest understanding on key topical issues of both scientific and policy relevance. These topics are:
1. tropospheric ozone and its precursors at the regional and global scale and its importance for air quality and climate;
2. the global nitrogen cycle and its importance for air quality and climate;
3. the atmospheric methane budget now and through the current century, its importance in climate change and its wider role in atmospheric composition change;
4. particulate matter with emphasis on the formation and fate of aerosol particles and their role in air quality and climate.
Four international teams were established including ACCENT-Plus partners and associates, also from outside Europe. The scientific teams have drafted a first outline of the review papers that were widely discussed taking advantage of the wide series of international workshops organised or co-organised by the project (see par. 3.4 below) and within the two ACCENT-Plus Urbino Symposia.
At this point, an international expert workshop was organised for a final revision of the four papers before final submission to the international journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry within a Special Issue called “Atmospheric composition change: science for policy”, edited by G. Brasseur, U. Pöschl, S. Fuzzi, and M. Maione.
These four review papers follows a common format which includes: i) an up-to-date description of the state-of-the-art within the specific fields; ii) an evaluation of the policy implications of the specific issues; iii) an outlook to the evolution of the treated issues with respect to the environmental policies at the national, European and global scales. Another common feature of the four papers is the concept of air quality and climate change as “two sides of the same coin”. In spite of this, there is still a separation between air pollution and climate change in both the policy and scientific communities. This separation is reflected in the temporal and geographic scales of interest: air pollution efforts focus on the near-term and the local and regional scales, whereas climate change efforts focus on the long-term and global scale. As with many issues, there also exists a divide between the scientific and policy communities that hinders communication and understanding. These papers aim at breaking down these divides and clarify the synergies and trade-offs of research and mitigation efforts across a spectrum of air pollution and climate change policies.
More specifically, the four papers address the following scientific/policy issues:
i. Ozone. The atmospheric emissions and concentration of major ozone precursors have decreased significantly over the last two decades. The changes in emissions have reduced peak ozone concentrations, but the mean concentrations have increased. Why has the ozone concentration not decreased more substantially in Europe? How well do we understand the cause of increases in background ozone? Are the trends in background ozone sufficiently well understood to be confident of the future ozone climate of Europe? How well do we understand the interactions between tropospheric ozone and the expected changes in climate through the 21st century?
ii. Particulate Matter. How well are we able to quantify the sources concentrations and composition of particulate matter in Europe? What species/types of aerosols should be regulated, what are the most damaging compounds? What is the importance of primary versus secondary aerosols for health and climate change? What is the combined impact of the different types of aerosols (sulphates, nitrates, BC, OC, secondary) on climate? What is the impact of changes in the concentrations of different types of particles on clouds and precipitation? Can win-win strategies to address climate and air quality issues be developed and implemented over Europe?
iii. Methane. The trends in global atmospheric methane since the early 1990s have fluctuated substantially between years with growth in atmospheric mixing ratios in some years and declines in others, and while there are several hypotheses to explain the trends, none have been shown to be adequate to explain the observations. Thus the IPCC 5th assessment concludes that we do not understand the changes in global methane sources and sinks over this period. The paper includes an examination of the chemical sinks in the atmosphere as well as the oxidation sink in soils and natural and anthropogenic sources. These are necessary to show how methane concentrations are likely to change in the future and how climate changes will feed back onto sources and sinks of atmospheric methane.
iv. Nitrogen Cycle. How well do we understand the global cycle of fixed nitrogen compounds? What is the impact of agriculture (food production) on the global and regional nitrogen budget? What is the impact of nitrogen compounds on aerosols? How will climate change impact emissions, atmospheric processing, concentrations and deposition of nitrogen compounds, and what is the likely impact on food production? How are nitrogen levels changing in cities/megacities and what is the impact on health? The human modification of the nitrogen cycle has a profound effect on the carbon cycle, but how well is this quantified at global and regional scales?
Three of these papers are already published in Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Discussions waiting for final publication after peer review:
a. Tropospheric ozone and its precursors from the urban to the global scale from air quality to short-lived climate forcer. P. S. Monks, A. T. Archibald, A. Colette, O. Cooper, M. Coyle, R. Derwent, D. Fowler, C. Granier, K. S. Law, D. S. Stevenson, O. Tarasova, V. Thouret, E. von Schneidemesser, R. Sommariva, O. Wild, and M. L. Williams. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 14, 32709-32933, 2014.
b. Particulate matter, air quality and climate: lessons learned and future needs. S. Fuzzi, U. Baltensperger, K. Carslaw, S. Decesari, H. Denier van der Gon, M. C. Facchini, D. Fowler, I. Koren, B. Langford, U. Lohmann, E. Nemitz, S. Pandis, I. Riipinen, Y. Rudich, M. Schaap, J. Slowik, D. V. Spracklen, E. Vignati, M. Wild, M. Williams, and S. Gilardoni. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 15, 521-744, 2015.
c. Effects of global change during the 21st century on the nitrogen cycle. D. Fowler, C. E. Steadman, D. Stevenson, M. Coyle, R. M. Rees, U. M. Skiba, M. A. Sutton, J. N. Cape, A. J. Dore, M. Vieno, D. Simpson, S. Zaehle, B. D. Stocker, M. Rinaldi, M. C. Facchini, C. R. Flechard, E. Nemitz, M. Twigg, J. W. Erisman, and J. N. Galloway. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 15, 1747-1868, 2015.
The paper of methane is still lagging behind and submission is foreseen in May 2015.
2 Air quality review.
One of the main S&T results of ACCENT-Plus, not initially foreseen at the beginning of the project, is of the synthesis report commissioned by DG Research “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review”, with leading authors: D. Fowler, B. Brunekreef, S. Fuzzi, S. Gilardoni, P.S. Monks, M.A. Sutton, S. Reis, G.P. Brasseur and R. Friedrich.
This report provides a summary of the policy relevant messages from the research and monitoring communities as an input to the EU Air policy implementation and review process. The approach in distilling the messages has been to provide a minimum of background science as context, explain the message simply and identify what remains unclear or not understood to show the levels of confidence of further policy actions. Lastly we identify further research needs to address these uncertainties.
The aim of the EU Air policy implementation and review process is to provide: “a robust EU Clean Air package, updating existing policies and directives including the National Emission Ceilings Directive according to latest science, and outlining further cost-effective measures to move much closer to the related 6EAP’s objective: to achieve levels of air quality that do not result in unacceptable impacts on, and risks to, human health and the environment.” This process therefore requires an understanding of the messages from research and monitoring activities throughout Europe and developments in the wider global science community. The review, focuses on research and assessment activities within Europe and has the following two objectives:
1. to identify key scientific messages relevant for the revision and implementation of EU Air Quality legislation;
2. to identify limitations to knowledge and emerging issues.
The review was coordinated by the European Commission - Directorate General for Research & Innovation with contributions from the JRC, DG ENV, DG SANCO, the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The hearth of the report has been produced involving 54 leading European scientists, representing 30 European FP6 and FP7 research projects.
The wider global literature has been used to provide a wider perspective and context for the review. Air Quality directives, the National emissions ceilings directives and the UNECE Gothenburg protocol provided the main control instruments.
The report has been elaborated through a very intensive consultation process that took a little over a year from Start Oct 2011-to complete Jan 2013. The preliminary results have been presented to the group of stakeholders chaired by DG ENVIRONMENT.
The chapters are recognisably the product of scientists, the messages are not policy prescriptive and do not necessarily take into account the complexity of the political process involved in the revision process, being this the nature of science. The policy messages are broad, and consider effects on human health, ecosystems and climate.
The Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn wrote the introduction to the Report, emphasizing that “… particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen oxides are, today, the most important air pollutants in Europe, posing serious risks to human health and the environment, in particular for their impact on climate change …”. Furthermore stating, “…research is at the very heart of the process launched by the European Commission to undertake a full revision of its air quality policy …”.
The Report, edited and printed by ACCENT-Plus was published in June 2013 and launched at the European Green Week (4-7 June 2013).
3 Urbino Symposia
Continuing the successful series of the ACCENT Urbino Symposia, ACCENT-Plus organised two biennial conferences involving the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change.
• The first ACCENT-Plus Symposium (third of the Urbino series), held on 13 -16 September 2011, was entitled "Air Quality and Climate Change: Interactions and Feedbacks", reflecting the main theme of ACCENT-Plus. The Symposium provided a unique opportunity and focus for research. The goals of this conference were to promote the integration and collaboration of the relevant scientific communities and to establish a constructive interaction with policy-makers. A close link with the most important international activities/projects has also been established, especially in the frame of the opening session where the representative of the most important FP7 projects and of international bodies and/or initiatives dealing with climate change and air quality, draw the attention on how science can best support policy. The Symposium has been organised in plenary oral and poster sessions. The topics of the sessions were: i) Methane, air quality and climate, ii) Ozone, air quality and climate, iii) Nitrogen cycle, benefits and threats, iv) Particulate matter, climate and water cycle, and v) Air quality & health (human and ecosystems). Ca. 120 delegates, representing research institutions from all over the world, attended the Symposium. Thanks to the contribution of the European Space Agency and of the WMO, it has been possible to support the attendance of 20 young scientists, some of which from developing countries like China and India. The extended abstracts of 52 out of the 120 scientific contributions presented (either as posters or oral) have been collected and published in the ACCENT-Plus web portal.
• The second ACCENT-Plus Symposium, Urbino, 17- 20 September 2013, was entitled “Bringing together the European Research in atmospheric composition change, Challenges for the next decade”. The goals of the conference were to promote the integration and collaboration of the relevant European funded projects in the field of Atmospheric Composition Change that collaborated in the organisation of the specific sessions. The EU FP7 projects involved were PEGASOS, ECLAIRE, ECLIPSE, ACTRIS, InGOS, APPRAISAL and SEFIRA. The link with the most important international activities/projects (e.g. iCACGP, IGAC, iLEAPS, SOLAS, GAW, etc.) ensured exchange with the international (extra-European) scientific community. The Symposium has been organised in plenary oral and poster sessions. The topics of the sessions were: 1) Improving observational capacities (aerosol and reactive gases); 2) Climate change, air pollution and ecosystems; 3) Short lived pollutants, climate and air quality; 4) Improving observational capacities (greenhouse gases); 5) Atmospheric composition research, the next decade; 6) Gas-aerosols climate interaction; 7) Integrated assessment. Ca. 100 delegates, representing research institutions from all over the world, attended the Symposium. Thanks to the contribution of the WMO, it has been possible to support the attendance of 15 young scientists, some of which from developing countries like China and India. The extended abstracts of the scientific contributions are published in the ACCENT-Plus web portal.
4 ACCENT-Plus topical workshops
ACCENT-Plus has organised (or co-organised) a series of workshops on topical issues relevant to atmospheric composition change that have provided input to the preparation of the ACCENT-Plus topical papers.
• Session on "The effect of reactive nitrogen emissions on atmospheric chemistry drivers of climate change", organised by ACCENT-Plus within the International Conference Nitrogen and Global Change: Key Findings - Future Challenges, held in Edinburgh on April 11-15, 2011. The lectures presented at the ACCENT-Plus session covered interactions between climate and the processes regulating the exchange of nitrogen compounds between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere.
• Workshop "Reaching International Cooperation on Climate Change Mitigation", co-organised with the Tel Aviv Law School and the Chicago School of Law on December 21-23, 2011. The workshop directly addressed the questions of climate policy, discussions between the developed and developing world. In this workshop an important connection was realised between natural and social scientists. Common topics and gaps between the communities were identified and the possibilities to explore new directions for climate policy were discussed.
• Technical workshop "Source apportionment of particulate matter” co-organized with the European Commission-Joint Research Centre, Ispra, 27-28 February 2013. The main objectives of the workshop were to discuss the progress of the harmonization activity carried out within the framework of the JRC Initiative on Receptor Models in collaboration with FAIRMODE and AQUILA.
• Workshop “Pollution studied by Remote Sensing of Conurbation/megacities and REtrieved from observations made by Instrumentation on space BasEd platforms” (PRESCRIBE), held in Bremen 15-16 May 2013. The workshop builds on three decades of international efforts to understand the impact of mega-cities on tropospheric chemistry, and specifically on remote sensing research, which has pioneered the study of tropospheric trace constituents and aerosols from space.
5 European IGAC Office and related international activities
An essential task for ACCENT-Plus has been the contribution to the research agendas of international atmospheric science. In this context, ACCENT-Plus has continued to support the European IGAC office, which is established at the ACCENT-Plus Coordinator's Institution. IGAC, in fact, provided the international context for ACCENT-Plus science and policy orientated output, fostering international collaboration on the role of atmospheric chemistry in climate change and the impact of changing emissions, deposition, long-range transport, and transformations on atmospheric chemical composition and air quality and as such is closely aligned to the science and policy goals of ACCENT-Plus.
ACCENT-Plus is directly participating in the management of IGAC with three members of the IGAC Steering Committee, including one of the two Co-chairs.
Through the European IGAC Office, ACCENT-Plus has supported the participation of European scientists to various co-sponsored activities.
Among the most important activities that ACCENT-Plus has been involved through the European IGAC Office, it is worth mentioning:
• Air Pollution & Climate: A Science-Policy Dialogue. This activity, sponsored by IGBP, seeks to open a science-policy dialogue on the air pollution and climate change challenge. There is still a separation between air pollution and climate change in both the policy and scientific communities. This separation is reflected in the temporal and geographic scales of interest: air pollution efforts focus on the near-term and the local and regional scales, whereas climate change efforts focus on the long-term and global scale. As with many issues, there also exists a divide between the scientific and policy communities that hinders communication and understanding. The aim of the Air Pollution and Climate Initiative is to break down these divides and clarify the synergies and trade-offs of research and mitigation efforts across a spectrum of air pollution and climate change policies.
• Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative (CCMI). This joint IGAC/SPARC Initiative (CCMI) was established to coordinate future chemistry-climate model evaluation and associated modelling activities. Increasingly, the chemistry and dynamics of the stratosphere and troposphere are being studied and modelled as a single entity in global models. As evidence, in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5), several groups performed simulations in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) using global models with interactive chemistry spanning the surface through the stratosphere and above. In addition, tropospheric and stratospheric global chemistry-climate models are continuously being challenged by new observations and process analyses. Some recent intercomparison exercises have for example highlighted shortcomings in our understanding and/or modelling of long-term ozone trends and methane lifetime.
• Global Emissions Initiative (GEIA). GEIA is a community effort that builds bridges between environmental science and policy, by bringing together people, data, and tools to create and communicate the highest quality information about emissions. GEIA seeks to enhance access to emissions data, facilitate analysis to improve the scientific basis for emissions information, and strengthen the emissions community. In fact, quantification of chemical emissions into the air is a key step in explaining observed variability and trends in atmospheric composition and in attributing these observed changes to their causes on local to global scales. Accurate emissions data are necessary to identify feasible controls that reduce adverse impacts associated with air quality and climate, to track the success of implemented policies, and to estimate future impacts.
ACCENT-Plus also participated to a smaller extent to the IGAC-supported activities Air-Ice Chemical Interactions (AICI), Halogens in the Troposphere (HitT) and Interdisciplinary Biomass Burning Initiative (IBBI).
Last but not least, ACCENT-Plus had an important role in the organization of:
• The session “Atmospheric composition in a changing world: scientific knowledge and uncertainty” of the IGBP Planet Under Pressure 2012 Conference, the largest gathering of global change scientists leading up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), London, 26-29 March, 2012.
• 12th IGAC Open Science Conference “Atmospheric Chemistry in the Anthropocene”, held on 17nd-21st September, 2012, in Beijing, China, addressing the critical interactions between the atmosphere and human activities in an era where humans have fundamentally altered the composition and chemistry of our atmosphere.
• 13th Quadrennial iCACGP Symposium and 13th IGAC Science Conference “Changing Chemistry in a Changing World”, held on 22nd-26th September, 2014, in the city of Natal, in north-eastern Brazil, addressing the critical interactions between the atmosphere and human activities that keep changing with our changing world.
6 ACCENT-Plus Summer School and MACC Summer School
One of the aims of the ACCENT-Plus coordinated action is the contribution to the development of a skilled generation of scientists through the organisation of Summer Schools.
Along the duration of the project, ACCENT-Plus contributed to the organisation of the MACC Summer School and organised the ACCENT-Plus one.
• MACC Summer School, Anglet, France, 9-16 June 2013: ACCENT Plus co-organised the MACC-II (Modelling Atmospheric Composition and Climate) project Summer School "Modelling and Forecasting of Atmospheric Composition at Different Scales" for early-career scientists, users of MACC-II products and data providers. ACCENT-Plus partners have given lectures at the school and have helped in the preparation of the different activities of the school.
• ACCENT-Plus Summer School, Urbino, Italy, 22-29 June 2014: ACCENT-Plus organised a Summer School on “Atmospheric Composition Change: Drivers, Feedbacks and Impacts in Air Quality and Climate”. The main aim of the Summer School was to educate and provide the participants with the necessary background scientific knowledge to understand the current issues related to the drivers, impacts and feedback between atmospheric chemistry and climate change, being this is required for research as well as in the formulation of environmental policies. The School comprised lectures on the fundamentals of atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry as well on the impact of atmospheric composition change on air quality, human health, ecosystems, agriculture and the feedback with climate. Lectures on the scientific diagnostic tools used to test our understanding and make predictions, viz. the observation of atmospheric composition and meteorological parameters and atmospheric modelling were included. In addition, studies of policy documents and lectures on how to improve one's communication have been organised. The students have also had the opportunity to perform practical work, like e.g. analysing atmospheric data collected during school, using emission data base, analysing time series of surface as well as satellite data, but also how to write a press release or how to give an interview. The teachers included scientists from the ACCENT-Plus network but also specialists in specific fields, like i.e. epidemiology, communication, and integrated assessment, enrolled outside the consortium. Sixty PhD students or early stage researchers from all over the word attended the school. Most of them are from Europeans but all the continents were represented with students coming from North and South America, Africa, Australia and Asia.
7 Research-policy stakeholder meeting
A stakeholder dialogue meeting was convened in Brussels to present the findings of the ACCENT+ synthesis and related EC funded projects to a broad range of stakeholders from the Air Quality and Climate Change science, policy and industry community. The meeting was held at the Belgian Academy of Sciences in Brussels on Tuesday 2nd December 2014.
A presentation of the results of the main EC-funded projects in the domain of atmospheric composition changes was followed by a panel discussion with the stakeholders in attendance. The main points concerned: i) short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) and CO2; ii) local vs. regional control measures; iii) European vs. hemispheric or global control measures; iv) high-impact weather and the water cycle; v) issues in integrating air quality and climate change policies; vi) possible co-benefits for air quality/climate change integrated policy; vii) integration of natural sciences and social sciences in air quality and climate in air quality/climate change policies.
The following points briefly summarise the main points of the discussion.
• Climate change and air pollution are two (equally) important global environmental problems for society;
• Impacts of air pollution involve human health, ecosystems and on climate;
• 3.5 millions die prematurely globally each year due to air pollution (WHO);
• The policy approaches to reduce air pollution and climate change have not been sufficiently connected. Other co-benefits (water, soils, etc.) should be considered;
• Air quality is not only an issue for developing countries: it is still a problem for Europe;
• A large number of (local) measures can help to protect climate and air quality; often people ask for immediate measures that favour air quality over long-term climate measures, however, both CO2 and reactive gas emissions need to be mitigated.
• Several regions/environments are particularly vulnerable to climate change and air pollution, especially the Arctic regions for: a) Arctic air degradation (from European and Russian sources); b) transportation and tourism (new routes); c) fisheries; d) resource extraction.
In terms of the main drivers of air quality/climate change, the conclusions of the discussion concerned four main components.
• Aerosols (PM) – i) concentrations above legal thresholds remain a major issue in several regions of Europe (e.g. Po Valley); ii) human health impacts of PM are substantial, even if the biological/chemical mechanisms are not really understood; iii) monitoring of PM1 should be considered in the future for better integrating human health/climate change issues.
• Ozone – i) is a persistent (unsolved) problem; peaks have been reduced by past policy measures, but background values have increased; ii) is a hemispheric problem that needs an international approach; iii) importance of heavy localized source of pollutants and of atmospheric methane trends; iv) gas flaring and fracking represent a new threat.
• Ammonia – i) is a key precursor of aerosol particle formation; ii) affects air quality, greenhouse balance, water quality, etc.; iii) emissions will increase with global warming; iv) is produced as a result of inefficient agricultural practices (fertilizers) and there seem to be policy barrier to reduce emissions and a strong lobby against measures; v) ozone increase leads to higher use of fertilizers and higher ammonia emissions.
• Pollens and other allergens – i) airborne pollens are a key health problem with huge economic impacts; ii) allergenic effects are exacerbated by bad air quality; iii) the issue will become more prominent with climate change.
Ideas for the road ahead in the integration of science and policy for contrasting air quality deterioration and climate change were also discussed.
• There have been very successful programs developed and sponsored by international organizations (FP6, FP7, H2020 by the EC, GAW by WMO, HTAP by LRTAP and others).
• The EU has played a leading role in reducing emissions.
• A vibrant research program, including fundamental research, monitoring activities, modelling and predictions remains a necessity if Europe wants to remain at the forefront in this field.
• The complex problems call for integrated approaches.
• At the same time, the service function of science in support of society will be growing in importance. The research approaches will change, become more and more integrative and will require a sustained dialogue with users and other stakeholders.
Potential Impact:
1 Impact
ACCENT-Plus has continued and further improved the long-lasting co-operation and integration of European research institutions which have taken part in the previous phase of ACCENT and ha also created links with the other relevant research projects funded by the European Commission in the field of atmospheric composition change and climate.
The integration of the science community has taken place in areas as: i) research programming, ii) joint development and use of data bases, iii) training and mobility of researchers, iv) joint programming and use of infrastructures. To accomplish these goals, also taking into account the own limited resources that ACCENT-Plus has had access to, a strong link with other relevant European research efforts, namely, the large scale project funded by the Commission, the I3 infrastructure projects approved. The linkage with these projects has favoured joint activities within the coordination of research, thus allowing a more rational use of the resources, avoiding duplicate efforts.
ACCENT-Plus, through its integration efforts, has strengthened the position of Europe as an international leader in atmospheric composition research, able to steer research agendas through its involvement in major international programmes and capable of reinforcing European environmental policy-making. This is certainly an important step forward to the creation of the European Research Area in the field of global change.
The links already started during the first phase of ACCENT with international programs such as IGBP, its core projects and the atmospheric component of the WMO programs, have also continued and strengthened.
One of the most relevant contributions of ACCENT-Plus in a policy context are the four scientific review papers (ACCENT-Plus Topical Papers) that present the latest understanding on key topical issues of both scientific and policy relevance: i) tropospheric ozone and its precursors at the regional and global scale and its importance for air quality and climate; ii) the global nitrogen cycle and its importance for air quality and climate; iii) the atmospheric methane budget now and through the current century, its importance in climate change and its wider role in atmospheric composition change; iv) particulate matter with emphasis on the formation and fate of aerosol particles and their role in air quality and climate. These papers, submitted to the international journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, and prepared by a large interdisciplinary team of scientists will for sure have a great impact on the international science arena in the field of atmospheric composition change.
The main aim of ACCENT-Plus was to foster the two-way dialog with the policy community initiated within ACCENT. The overall objective was, in fact, to provide a synthesis of scientific results in a policy perspective on the above four issues of primary importance for both air quality and climate: particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen cycle, methane. These topics are, in fact, closely related and efforts will be made to integrate the policy-related scientific findings, in a close dialogue with the relevant stakeholders.
In this respect, an initiative that has had an important impact on the policy of the European Commission DG Environment has been the synthesis report commissioned by DG Research “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review”.
This report provides a summary of the policy relevant messages from the research and monitoring communities as an input to the EU Air policy implementation and review process.
The review, focuses on research and assessment activities within Europe and has identified: i) the key scientific messages relevant for the revision and implementation of EU Air Quality legislation and ii) the limitations to knowledge and emerging issues.
The review was coordinated by the European Commission - Directorate General for Research & Innovation with contributions from the JRC, DG ENV, DG SANCO, the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The heart of the report has been produced involving 54 leading European scientists, representing 30 European FP6 and FP7 research projects. The messages provided in the report are not policy prescriptive and do not necessarily take into account the complexity of the political process involved in the revision process, this is the nature of science. The policy messages are broad, and consider effects on human health, ecosystems and climate.
The Report, edited and printed by ACCENT-Plus was published in June 2013 and launched at the European Green Week (Brussels, 4-7 June 2013).
2 Dissemination
Changes in atmospheric composition directly affect many aspects of the environment, driving climate changes, affecting air quality and influencing atmospheric inputs to ecosystems. As a consequence, these changes strongly affect the fundamental necessities for human existence, like human health, food production, and availability of water. The importance of communicating results of scientific research in the field of atmospheric composition change lies in that people need more information to better understand the complexity of atmospheric processes, and, as a consequence, to develop behavioural patterns that can help in reducing the emissions of compounds that can affect both air quality and climate.
The main problems in communicating science to non scientists are i) atmospheric sciences are difficult for the public to be interpreted, ii) frequently scientists receive relatively little training in communication, iii) uncertainties are frequently affecting the understanding of atmospheric processes, whereas clear political and social decisions are required. Target groups for communication in the field are policy makers, teachers, students in schools, colleges and universities, and the general public that, in turn, produces pressure on the policy makers. Within ACCENT-Plus actions were undertaken to address all the mentioned target groups. However, policy makers have been by far the most prominent target group, as the contribution of the scientific research to the development of environmental policies is the core activity of ACCENT-Plus.
For this, the ACCENT-Plus web portal has sections dedicated to outreach activities. In particular, the access to the ACCENT magazine on Climate Change, developed within the first ACCENT phase, that demonstrated to be a useful tool for disseminating scientific results to undergraduate students and to the general public was maintained and further developed. As the magazine is available in several languages, the problem related to fragmentation due to language barriers when communicating to the public is overcome. Moreover, the ACCENT-Plus web portal provide an easy access to documents (presentations, videos, web resources) to be used by the scientific community when preparing presentations addressed to non-scientists.
The ACCENT-Plus summer school “Drivers, Feedbacks and Impacts in Air Quality and Climate Change”, was aimed at developing a skilled generation of scientists and policymakers who understand the issues related to climate change and their relation to atmospheric chemistry. The summer school has assembled a group of natural and social scientists addressing questions at the interface between physical, chemical, biological, social and political sciences. Moreover, professional lecturers in this field gave lectures on communication of scientific results to non-scientists, thus overcoming the fact that scientists generally lack professional recognition for engaging with the public.
The two ACCENT-Plus symposia: “Air Quality and Climate Change: Interactions and Feedbacks” (2011) and “Bringing together the European Research in atmospheric composition change. Challenges for the next decade” (2013) did not only gather the wider European scientific community, but also involved relevant policy-makers and the general public.
As already said, the main aims of ACCENT-Plus were to transfer the science results to the policy/decision making and to act as a link between science and policy making by transferring to the decision makers the important links between air quality and climate change and the prospects and benefits of co-control policies. In this context, the above described report “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review” is a simple, authoritative and well articulated dissemination tool, appropriate for the policy-makers readership, The document has been the result of a process involving the whole European science community in the field.
Finally, an important dissemination action of ACCENT-Plus has been the Research-Policy Stakeholder Meeting held at the Royal Academy of Sciences, Brussels on December 2nd, 2014. This meeting, organised in collaboration with the other European Commission supported projects ATOPICA, PEGASOS, MACC, ECLAIRE and ECLIPSE, addressed science/policy issues of relevance for government, public administration and the corporate world. The discussion included representatives of the European Commission, the Word Health Organization (WHO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the European Environment Agency (EEA).
3. ACCENT-Plus self assessment
The assessment of the project and the impact of the project results can be analysed with the quantitative performance indicators indicated in the DoW at the start of the project.
3.1 Number of scientific publications. ACCENT-Plus is a coordinated action that, as such, has limited space for research activities. The four ACCENT-Plus topical papers (one still in preparation) are the direct scientific outcome of the project. These papers present the latest understanding on key issues of both scientific and policy relevance within the subjects of air quality, climate change and their interactions. The papers have a strong policy component. A letter was also published in the Nature Correspondence by the ACCENT-Plus Community on “European pollution: Investigate smog to inform policy” by P.S. Monks et al.. Further to these direct scientific outcome, several scientific papers by partners/associates to the project acknowledge the contribution by ACCENT-Plus in facilitating their research efforts through its integration and outreach activities.
3.2 Number of strategic reports. By far the most important strategic report resulting from ACCENT-Plus is the synthesis commissioned by DG Research “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review” that provides a summary of the policy relevant messages from the research and monitoring communities as an input to the EU Air policy implementation and review process. Other major science/policy reports from ACCENT-Plus activities are: i) Report on the second international workshop on tropospheric ozone changes; ii) Pollution studied by REmote Sensing of Conurbations/urban conglomerations/megacities and Retrieved from observations made by Instrumentation on space BasEd platforms – PRESCRIBE. Through the IGAC European Office, ACCENT-Plus has also contributed to the strategic IGBP Report “Air Pollution & Climate: A Science-Policy Dialogue”. Last but not least, two ACCENT-Plus scientists have taken part to the preparation of the 5th IPCC Report “Climate Change 2013 – The Physical Science Basis”.
3.3 ACCENT-Plus Web portal statistics. The ACCENT-Plus web portal is the main tool for communication inside and outside the ACCENT-Plus community. Since the beginning of the project 291 articles have been published on the web portal. Over four years, the web portal received 76.500 page views from users from all over the world.
3.4 Training courses and knowledge distributed via web. ACCENT-Plus has directly organised/co-organised two summer schools: i) the MACC Summer School for early-career scientists, users of MACC-II products and data providers; ii) ACCENT-Plus Summer School, to provide the participants with the necessary background to understand the current issues related to the drivers, impacts and feedback between atmospheric chemistry and climate change, for research as well as in the formulation of environmental policies. Furthermore, ACCENT-Plus has supported many European young scientists to attend important international meetings, thus contributing to their education/training; Four e-learning modules are available through the ACCENT-Plus web portal under the heading “outreach and education”.
3.5 Interaction with policy makers. ACCENT-Plus has had two main series of interactions with policy makers in connection with the preparation of the report “Research findings in support of the EU Air Quality Review” during which step by step discussions with relevant stakeholders took place to shape up the subsequent drafts of the report. Furthermore, the outcome of ACCENT-Plus as a whole and those of other relevant European Commission supported projects were presented and discussed with stakeholders at the research-policy stakeholder meeting organised in Brussels at the end of the project. In addition, the two ACCENT-Plus symposia did not only gather the wider European scientific community, but also involved relevant policy-makers and the general public.
List of Websites:
http://www.accent-network.org
Coordinator:
Dr. Sandro Fuzzi
Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Via Gobetti 101
40129 Bologna, Italy
tel. +39 051 639 9559
fax: +39 051 639 9647
s.fuzzi@isac.cnr.it
Project Office:
Prof. Michela Maione
Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo"
DiSBeF - Sezione di Scienze Chimiche
Piazza Rinascimento 6
61029 Urbino - Italy
tel. +39 0722 303316
fax: +39 0722 303311
michela.maione@uniurb.it