Cloud formations provide an insight into the atmosphere and its interactions with the Earth.

Understanding our living atmosphere

CSIRO’s Climate and Atmosphere scientists use observations of the Earth and its atmosphere to assess air quality, greenhouse gases and the interactions between land and air.

• 16 December 2005 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Addressing the issues
• Outcomes

The Earth’s atmosphere is a dynamic part of our environment. It plays an important part in influencing all life forms, and impacts on our behaviour, productivity and lifestyle. It is important that we understand how it works and interacts with the land and oceans.

CSIRO’s Climate and Atmosphere research is investigating areas including:

• world-class air-quality science with maximum community benefit
• understanding the composition and sources of our changing atmosphere to better inform policy
• understanding the land and atmosphere systems and their interactions, to inform and improve natural resource management and climate predictions.

Addressing the issues

Our goal is to provide the science for policies, actions and methodologies that will ensure the health and responsible use of the atmosphere and its interactions with the Earth.

Our research provides vital information on the physical, chemical and biological properties and processes of the atmosphere and its interaction with the Earth’s surface. 

The results from this research will contribute to the development of solutions and management strategies for:

• environmental and human health impacts resulting from air pollution
• climate change and ozone depletion issues
• the response of Australian ecosystems to varying climate
  natural resource management, including water and carbon budgets, wind power and low-emission/renewable fuels.

Our involvement in the National Research Flagship program also contributes to environmental solutions in energy production, minimising the environmental footprint of industry and mitigating air pollutant exposure.

Outcomes

There has been a high acceptance and use of products, such as The Air Pollution Model, developed by CSIRO researchers. Some of our scientific results and models have been used in UK Meteorological Office models and NASA's global aerosol and cloud data.

Other outcomes from our research have assisted in:

• managing urban smog in Sydney
• identification of sources of greenhouse gases (for example, our 2000-year records of greenhouse gases and isotopes have led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to conclude that most of the warming of the past 50 years is due to greenhouse gases)
• implementation of our intelligent wind energy forecasting/energy storage systems
• improved knowledge about the concentrations and sources of dioxins in Australia
• improved use of satellite data to detect and understand long-term decreases in green vegetation cover over Australia
• determination of water and carbon cycle budgets for improved natural resource management and climate prediction
• input into the Environment Protection and Heritage Council's air quality and health (national ozone and sulfur dioxide) standards, and climate change impact assessments
• the development of the LoFlo carbon dioxide gas analyser, which has led to a ten-fold improvement in the precision of atmospheric measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Read about the work of  Dr Helen Cleugh: tracking exchanges between land and air.