ICOS is a pan-European research infrastructure for quantifying and understanding the greenhouse gas balance of the Europe and its neighbouring regions.
The backbones of ICOS RI are the national networks consisting of atmospheric and ecosystem stations across Europe and marine stations covering North Atlantic and European marginal seas. Initially there will be more than 90 ICOS RI stations. The ICOS National Networks will gradually extend as more stations are integrated into ICOS RI.
Atmospheric stations measure continuously the greenhouse gas concentrations of CO2, CH4, CO and radiocarbon-CO2 in the atmosphere due to regional and global fluxes.
Ecosystem stations measure fluxes of CO2, CH4, H2O, and heat together with ecosystem variables needed to understand the processes behind the exchange of energy and greenhouse gases between the ecosystems and the atmosphere.
Marine stations consists of a network of ships and fixed stations monitoring the carbon exchange between the surface ocean and the atmosphere, acidification of oceans, surface temperature, salinity and other variables.
