A new research infrastructure to decipher the greenhouse gas balance of Europe and adjacent regions
The ICOS building blocks
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Figure 2 The ICOS elements
- Headquarters which co-ordinate all activities, and which is responsible for outreach.
- The Carbon Portal, providing free discovery and access to the ICOS data,
- A Central Analytical Laboratory for calibration, quality control and atmospheric analyses for the entire network (being built in Germany)
- An Atmospheric Thematic Center responsible for continuous and discontinuous air sampling, instrument development/servicing and data processing (in France with node in Finland)
- An Ecosystem Thematic Center responsible for total ecosystem flux measurements and component fluxes and carbon pools, including data processing and instrument development (in Italy, with activities in France and Belgium),
- An Ocean Thematic Center responsible for ocean measurements including data processing and instrument development,
- Network of sites including about 50 atmospheric and 50 ecosystem sites located across Europe, and marine platforms for ocean observation
- Associated networks of Regional Observation sites which will contribute to the ICOS objectives, and share data with the Infrastructure