ABSTRACT
Climate change is one of the most challenging problems that humanity has to cope with in the coming decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the observed rise in global temperature is very likely due to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, caused by anthropogenic emissions. Enhanced understanding of the driving forces of climate change and its impact on the global biogeochemical cycles requires full quantification of the GHG sources and sinks and their evolution. Regional GHG flux patterns, tipping points, and vulnerabilities can be assessed by long-term, high-precision observations in the atmosphere and at the ocean and land surface. The ecosystem network of Integrated Carbon Observation System has the goal to monitor the terrestrial GHG balance of Europe and consists of a distributed network of eddy covariance towers placed over the main terrestrial ecosystems in Europe. Atmospheric stations are observatories continuously measuring GHG concentrations, focusing on the variability due to regional and global fluxes.
