The GMES Atmosphere Service will provide coherent information on atmospheric variables in support of European policies and for the benefit of European citizens. Services are proposed to cover: air quality, climate change/forcing, and stratospheric ozone and solar radiation.

The main functions of the GMES Atmosphere Service will be the acquisition and processing of space and in-situ observations (Near-Real-Time, historic and ancillary), analysis and forecasting, product generation, dissemination and archiving. In particular, the GMES Atmosphere Service will provide:

• Standard European data, on which downstream services will be based;
• Information for process assessments;
• Day-by-day analysis of the atmosphere at various space/time scales;
• Key information on long range transport of atmospheric pollutants;
• European overviews and initial and boundary conditions for air quality models;
• Sustained monitoring of green-house gases, aerosols and reactive gases such as tropospheric ozone.

On December 6-7, 2006, the European Commission organised a workshop in order to reach a common view on the objectives and requirements of the GMES Atmosphere Service and to discuss its implementation and sustainability. Orientation Paper and Final Workshop Report are both available here in the library.