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EMPIR projects to participate in European Geosciences Union General Assembly

Traffic during the rush hour

7 – 12 April 2019 in Vienna, Austria

The projects

EMPIR project <link research-innovation search-research-projects details>‘Metrology for nitrogen dioxide’ (16ENV05, MetN02) is working to develop innovative techniques, characterise existing ones and develop reference standards to enable the direct measurement and calibration of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide, which is produced when fossil fuels are burned in car engines and power stations. It has one of the greatest impacts on human health of all air pollutants, yet it is currently the only air pollutant that is not directly measured, resulting in less accurate measurements.

This EMPIR project is building on results from the earlier EMRP project <link research-innovation search-research-projects details>‘Metrology for chemical pollutants in air’ (ENV01, MACPoll) which addressed the need to assess the quality of outdoor and indoor air set by the European Air Quality Directive (2008/50EC).

EMPIR project <link research-innovation search-research-projects details>‘Metrology for stable isotope reference standards’ (16ENV06, SIRS) is working to develop a new infrastructure including methods and instrumentation to underpin measurements of stable isotopes of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, two major greenhouse gases, which enable their origin to be identified. This will be instrumental in providing more accurate, comparable data to separate various man-made sources of greenhouse gas emissions from each other, as well as from natural sources. The work will enable governments to develop accurate emissions inventories and models to comply with legislation, and inform new policy and better abatement strategies to help with taking climate action.

The conference

Results from these EMPIR projects will be presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly in April 2019. The General Assembly will bring together thousands of geoscientists from all over the world for one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences. In 2018, 15 075 scientists from 106 countries participated.

In addition, the project coordinator Dave Worton from NPL will chair the session entitled ‘AS3.20 Atmospheric gases and particles; metrology, quality control and measurement comparability’ on Thursday 11 April.

EGU GA Programme

Registration

EMPIR projects are co-funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the EMPIR Participating States.

EMRP joint research projects are part of EURAMET’s European Metrology Research Programme. The EMRP is jointly funded by the EMRP participating countries within EURAMET and the European Union.

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