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Last changed: 12/10/2009
The Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program of the World Meteorological Organisation is a co-ordinated worldwide network of observing stations and related facilities. The purpose and long-term goal of GAW is to measure the background level of atmospheric pollutants and other trace substances, to determine their trends and to analyse the relationship between environment and climate. GAW provides data with known and high data quality to the scientific community as well as national and international policymakers.
The map shows the location of the 22 GAW Global stations. Global stations are situated in more remote regions with low background levels of air pollutants, they are representative for a larger surrounding and measure a broad range of atmospheric pollutants over decades. In addition there are more than 300 GAW Regional stations with measurement programmes that usually depend on regional needs. Regional stations are representative for a smaller region and provide data applied for local or regional issues.
enlarge graphic (PDF / 108 KB)
Activities for the GAW monitoring programme in Germany consist of a co-operation of the German Weather Service, the Federal Environment Agency and a number of research institutes.
Research Centre Jülich:
World Calibration Centre for ozone sondes
http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg-ii/josieAlfred-Wegener-Institute Bremerhaven:
Global Station Neumayer/Antarktis
http://www.awi.de/en/infrastructure/stations/neumayer_station_iii/Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (IfT):
World Calibration Centre for Aerosol Physics
http://gaw.tropos.de/WCCAP/index.htmlResearch Centre Karlsruhe, IMK-IFU
World Calibration Centre for volatile organic compounds
Wold Calibration Centre for nitrous oxide
Germany contributes to GAW monitoring programme with the GAW Global stations Zugspitze/Hohenpeissenberg at 2650/1000 m a.s.l. and Neumeyer/Antarctica, and the Regional Station Schauinsland at 1150 m a.s.l..
The Global station Zugspitze/Hohenpeissenberg consists of the two platforms Zugspitze and Hohenpeissenberg and is operated by the Federal Environment Agency Germany and the German Weather Service. At platform Zugspitze the Federal Environment Agency measures at the Research Station Schneefernerhaus greenhouse gases and chemically reactive atmospheric trace substances. The German Weather Service measures synoptic data, radiation and radioactivity at the Zugspitze summit (2960 m a.s.l.) and at Schneefernerhaus. The measurement program of platform Hohenpeissenberg operated by the German Weather Service includes e.g. reactive atmospheric trace substances, aerosols, ozone profiles, radiation parameters and precipitation. For details on the measurement programs please refer to the respective websites.
The station Zugspitze/Hohenpeissenberg provides the data for central Europe. The next GAW Global Stations are situated in the northwest at the west coast of Ireland, in the north in Finland at the polar circle, in the east at Mount Waliguan in China and in the south in Tamanrasset/Sahara and in Izana on Tenerife/Canary Islands. Next alpine regional stations are Hoher Sonnblick in Austria at 3100m a.s.l. and Jungfraujoch at 3580m a.s.l. in Switzerland, which also contribute to the DACH cooperation.
Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus (2650 m a.s.l.) at Zugspitze.
Meteorological Observatory Hohenpeissenberg
Neumayer Station/Antarctica
QA/SAC Germany is one of four QA/SACs worldwide. It started its activities in 2000 and is operated by the Federal Environment Agency. It has established 3 World Calibration Centres, which are operated by research institutes.
Further national QA activities within GAW include the World Calibration Centre for ozone sondes run by the Research Centre Jülich, the Regional Dobson Calibration Centre run by the German Weather Service in co-operation with the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and the GAW Training and Education Centre (GAWTEC) run by the Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus.
The graph shows the contributions of the Federal Environment Agency to GAW (green fields).
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The measurement programme of the Federal Environment Agency includes greenhouse gases and chemically reactive atmospheric trace substances. An overview of the measured components is given in the table below.
Greenhouse Gases |
Reactive Trace Gases |
Carbon dioxide (CO2) |
Ozone (O3) |
Methane (CH4) |
Nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2, NOX, NOy) |
Nitrous oxide (N2O) |
Peroxy Acetic Nitric Anhydride (PAN) |
Sulfur hexa fluoride (SF6) |
Carbon monoxide (CO) |
Chloroflourocarbons (CFC's)* |
Volatile organic carbons ( < C5) and (>= C5)* |
| Precipitation chemistry* | |
pH, conductivity, sulfate, nitrate, chloride, ammonium, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesia, heavy metals |
|
UV Radiation* *in preparation |
|
Platform Zugspitze is situated 300m below Zugspitze summit in the environmental research station Schneefernerhaus.
In keeping with the specific data quality requirements, all data processing steps starting from the acquisition of raw data in the time range of seconds to the production of quality-assured half hour mean values have to be performed at the station. A special software system for data collection and quality assurance at GAW stations was developed in a project commissioned by the Federal Environment Agency under the Environmental Research Plan of the German Environment Ministry. In order to facilitate international standardization of data processing at GAW stations, developed software components are available to GAW stations free of charge.
Dr. Ludwig Ries (E-Mail),
German Federal Environment Agency
(GAW measurements at platform Zugspitze)
Dr. Holger Gerwig (E-Mail), German Federal Environment Agency (QA/SAC Germany)
Dr. Wolfgang Fricke (E-Mail),
German Weather Service
(GAW measurements at platform Hohenpeissenberg, GAW contact person
Germany)
Dr. Till Rehm (E-Mail),
Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus
(GAW Trainings- und
Ausbildungszentrum)