Atmospheric Aerosols – Life Cycles and Effects on Air Quality and Climate

Claudio Tomasi graduated at the Department of Physics of the University of Bologna, Italy. He worked as researcher at the National Council of Research CNR and became director of research in 1991. After his retirement, he still continues his research activity as Associate Researcher at the Institute for Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, ISAC-CNR. He was P. I. from 2005 to 2009 of the national project QUITSAT supported by the Italian Space Agency to evaluate the air quality parameters on the Po Valley area from polar and geostationary satellite-borne observations integrated with ground-based remote sensing and in situ sampling measurements and with Chemical-Transport-Meteorological model simulations of the PM and gaseous concentrations at the surface. Since 2007, he is leader of the international research project POLAR-AOD, dedicated to study the radiative parameters of polar aerosols and their direct radiative forcing effects. Sandro Fuzzi is Professor of Global Change at the University of Bologna and holds a doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Bologna, Italy. He is at present Research Director at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council, CNR. His main research interests are the physical and chemical processes involving atmospheric aerosols and clouds and their effects on atmospheric composition change, climate, ecosystems and human health. Is has been a member of several international Committees and Panels including the Science Panel of the European Commission on Atmospheric Composition Change and the Chairmanship of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project of the International Global Geosphere-Biosphere program. He has coordinated several national and international programs in the field of atmospheric composition change. Alexander A. Kokhanovsky graduated from the Physical Department of the Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus. Alexander Kokhanovsky is a member the SCIAMACHY/ENVISAT algorithm development team at the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen. His research interests are directed towards modeling light propagation and scattering in the terrestrial atmosphere. He has published more than 160 papers in the field of environmental optics, radiative transfer, and light scattering.