UrFU Enters Consortium for Research of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

13:19, November 21, 2017

For more than 15 years, the University scientists have been engaged in remote air sounding

UrFU has entered an international consortium which received funding as part of “Horizon 2020” program. The aim of the project is to develop accurate and reliable methods for obtaining qualitative data on sources of emission and flow of greenhouse gases.

The head of Climate and Environmental physics laboratory, Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics UrFU, Vyacheslav Zakharov, told us about the “Horizon 2020” application process.

“We were invited to participate in this large-scale project by our colleagues from The University of Bremen, which has been our partner since 2008. The same invitation from Max Plank Institute were received by our colleagues at Saint-Petersburg State University. As a result of joint discussion, we set our goals, planned further work for Russian teams from both universities and discussed the links to the goals of the overall project.”

The Consortium includes 38 research and scientific organizations from 15 countries including French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (France), Max Plank Institute (Germany), Joint Research Center of European Commission (Belgium), European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (England), Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (Italy), Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (Norway) and others, including two Russian Universities – Saint Petersburg State University and Ural Federal University.

For more than 15 years, UrFU scientists in collaboration with Japanese and European colleagues have been doing research on remote sensing of the atmosphere using satellite and ground-based high resolution infrared Fourier spectrometer. The contribution of UrFU scientists to the project involves obtaining and comparative analysis of data from carbonaceous greenhouse gas monitoring in the Urals` atmosphere with the use of atmospheric Fourier-station in Kourovka for monitoring of background atmosphere and portable Fourier spectrometer in Ekaterinburg for monitoring the atmosphere of the city.

“Horizon 2020” is a program for research and innovations funding by EU with the budget of €77 million, which supports development of science in Europe. Over the next three years, the European commission is planning to increase the effectiveness of research funding by focusing only on the important areas including migration, security, climate, pure energy and digital economics. Moreover, “Horizon 2020” is going to be focused on breakthrough, market-forming innovations.

The project is planned to be finished by 2019. Its total funding will be over 10 million euro.

 

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