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Funding by the European Commission of PEGASOS research project (Integrated European Large-Scale Project, IP) to study the interactions of air pollution and climate change. The coordination of the PEGASOS project is done by FORTH/ICE-HT.

The recent funding by the European Commission of the integrated large-scale project (IP), entitled “The Pan-European Gas-AeroSOls-climate interaction Study (PEGASOS)” is another important distinction at the European level for the Institute of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Processes High Temperature of the Technology and Research Foundation (FORTH/ICE-HT). The project is part of the scientific area of atmospheric chemistry and climate change interactions (Workprogramme FP7-ENV-2010). The duration of “PEGASOS” is five years (2010-2014), the total budget is 9.85 million Euros and the project is coordinated by Prof. Spyros Pandis, collaborating faculty member of FORTH/ICE-HT. FORTH/ICE-HT researchers, professors Maria Kanakidou, Nikos Michalopoulos, Athanasios Nenes, Christodoulos Pilinis and Evripidis Stefanou, are also participating.

Within the framework of PEGASOS project, most pioneering European research groups (from Greece, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) with most technologically advanced capabilities for measurements and simulations in order to:

1. Quantify the magnitude of regional to global feedbacks between atmospheric chemistry and a changing climate and to reduce the corresponding uncertainty of the major ones.
2. Identify mitigation strategies and policies to improve air quality while limiting their impact on climate change.

The project is organized into four scientific Themes designed to optimize the integration of methodologies, scales, and ultimately our understanding of air quality and climate interactions, namely:

1. Anthropogenic and biogenic emissions and their response to climate and socio-economy.
2. Atmospheric interactions among chemical and physical processes.
3. Regional and global links between atmospheric chemistry and climate change.
4. Air quality in a changing climate: Integration with policy.

PEGASOS will bridge the spatial and temporal scales that connect local surface-air pollutant exchanges, air quality and weather with global atmospheric chemistry and climate. Our major focus for air quality will be Europe including effects of changes in pollutant emissions elsewhere and the time horizon for the study will be the next 50 years. During the project we will provide improved process understanding in areas of major uncertainty for better quantification of feedbacks between air quality and a changing climate. We will present, for the first time, a fully integrated analysis of dynamically changing emissions and deposition, their link to tropospheric chemical reactions and interactions with climate, and emerging feedbacks between chemistry-climate and surface processes. We will target both local and regional scales, taking into account chemistry and climate feedbacks on the global scale.

For more information please contact:

Professor Spyros Pandis
FORTH/ICE-HT & Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras
Tel.: +30 2610 969 510