9528908 Bierly The International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) program and the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have included monitoring activities in their plans that will establish baselines for atmospheric chemistry research and assessment. The baselines are to be established by operating a series of six monitoring stations in remote, un-industrialized areas throughout the globe. A GAW baseline station is currently operating on the Tibetan plateau, and will soon be followed by baseline stations in Ushuaia, Sumatra, Mt. Kenya, South-east Algeria, and a final proposed station North of Bel=E9m, in Brazil. Baselines are to be established at each of these stations in five basic areas: a) the chemical composition of rain and snow, b) atmospheric gases, including greenhouse gases, ozone, and reactive gases like SO2 and NOx, c) aerosol chemical and physical characteristics, including total concentration and vertical profiles, d) solar radiation, including UV-B, and e) radio-nuclides. A series of GAW regional monitoring stations also exists in more industrialized areas around the globe. The data from these regional stations will be used in combination with the baseline stations to assess anthropogenic impacts. An effective means of establishing a stations for global atmospheric chemistry data set collection, gathered using not only similar equipment, but similar measurement methodologies, is to build a local capacity in atmospheric chemistry with a series of standard courses offered in different areas of the globe by leading scientists in the field. A pool of international volunteer lecturers has been recruited by a previous effort of the IGAC and GAW, in collaboration with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the Global Change System for Analysis, Research, and Training (START). This NSF grant, on behalf of the Inter American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), will cover tra vel and per diem costs of Latin American scientists from countries that have or will have GAW regional stations, as well as those scientists responsible for operating, maintaining, and managing the GAW baseline station at Ushuaia. The first two-week course will be held at the Instituto de Qu=EDmica F=EDsica de los Materiales, Medio Ambiente y Energ=EDa (INQUIMAE) of the University of Buenos Aires, and will cover emission, infra-red, UV/visible, and tumble diode laser spectroscopy, gas chromatography, conductometry, colorimetry, coulometry, enzymatic techniques, and quality assurance and control techniques, as well as data assessment and management methods.%%% This program will train local experts to operate global atmospheric chemistry monitoring stations. These 'baseline' monitoring stations will collect data from areas relatively free of pollution, and allow comparison with similar data from industrial areas in order to assess how much atmospheric pollution is related to human activity. The training program is being carried out as a U.S. contribution to the Inter American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), which has a strong commitment to training scientists in the Americas. Sixteen nations of the Americas are Member States of the IAI, a U.S. initiative to stimulate cooperative research on global change issues among the scientific institutions of the Americas. The National Science Foundation is the U.S. Government agency designated by the White House to carry out U.S. responsibilities within the IAI. ***
