White paper: NL-US collaboration in climate research from space

Last October, scientists from the Netherlands and the United States convened at the Dutch embassy in Washington to share their expertise on greenhouse gases, reactive gases, clouds and aerosols. These topics are important for climate research. In a white paper they set out a series of actions that will answer urgent climate questions.

The white paper reinforces the strong cooperation between the Netherlands and the United States in the field of atmospheric monitoring from space. Among the authors are scientists from the US National Science Foundation, NASA, SRON, TNO and KNMI. They identify ten research topics that would benefit from collaboration. The action items can be summarized into three categories:

• Joint development of space missions and aircraft campaigns, including successors of the space instruments OMI, TROPOMI and SPEXone.
• Joint research with satellite data, to increase our knowledge of air quality, climate and biodiversity. This includes the improvement of algorithms and comparison of satellite data.
• Joint organisation of workshops and the exchange of students and scientists.