Welcome
Welcome on the webpage of The Atmospheric Spectroscopy group at ULB.
The group belongs to the “Service de Chimie Quantique et Photophysique”, which bridges three main fields of the atomic and molecular sciences: ab initio calculations, high resolution infrared spectroscopy and atmospheric remote sensing.
Our activities are mainly centered on the sounding of composition from satellites, with our main field of expertise being atmospheric radiative transfer in the infrared:
We develop, own and maintain state-of-the-art RT software, which are used along with inverse methods to retrieve atmospheric concentrations. We take an active part to several space missions for the sounding of the low Earth’s Atmosphere (IASI, ACE, GOSAT), and also contribute to the preparation of future programs under auspices of ESA, EUMETSAT and CNES.
Our research is at present deeply connected to the IASI mission. Concentration distributions of reactive trace gases and aerosols are retrieved routinely from IASI measurements, and examined on various spatial and temporal scales. Applications range from global pollution monitoring (identification and quantification of sources and transport) and the assessment of environmental impacts, to the study of local plume chemistry. They also include several operational aspects, e.g. in air quality forecasting and volcanic surveillance.
H2S plume from the Kasatochi 2008 eruption.
First time such an observation is reported.
Clarisse et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L10804,doi:10.1029/2011GL047402
