While the mechanisms of greenhouse gases regulating global warming are generally well understood, there are still gaps in knowledge regarding the impact of certain non-CO2 radiative forcers on climate change.
The FOCI project (Non-CO2 Forcers And Their Climate, Weather, Air Quality And Health Impacts) focuses on this objective. Over the next four years, FOCI will investigate the impact of major radiative forcers (where and how they arise, their impact on the climate system, etc.) and will seek to find and test efficient implementations of these processes in global Earth System Models (ESMs) and regional climate models (RCMs).
Among the project’s final goals is the possibility of using the developed tools to study mitigation and/or adaptation policies incorporated into selected future development scenarios for Europe and other regions of the world.
From today until Wednesday, we are in Prague for the project’s kick-off meeting. ARIANET is pleased to participate, alongside top-level scientific partners, in this project, which serves as a bridge between air quality studies and climate change research.
Specifically, we will focus mainly on improving the use of regional-scale models and evaluating observations to quantify the multiscale impacts of non-CO2 radiative forcers. Additionally, we will be involved in defining emission databases at various scales, applying a model to calculate the effects of BVOC emissions considering different types of vegetation, and studying the impacts of emission reductions from agricultural activities.