In recent years, research has emphasised the role of atmospheric chemistry in the global environment, and specifically the impact of air pollution on global change. The important issue of air quality, initially considered as a local or regional problem is now regarded as a global problem. Surface emissions are essential in the determination of the chemical composition of the atmosphere, and for modelling the atmospheric processes and more generally, the Earth system.

The goal of this GEIA/ACCENT cooperative activity on emissions is to provide access to inventories of anthropogenic, biomass burning and natural emissions of a wide set of coumpounds : ozone precursors, greenhouse gases, organo-halogens, aerosols and their precursors, and several heavy metals. These emission datasets come from publically available inventories.

This web portal is developed by Aude Mieville and Claire Granier (see contacts), within the ACCENT European project and the GEIA (Global Emissions Inventory Activity) project which is part of the AIMES project (Analysis of the Integrated Modelling of the Earth system). AIMES is the new integration project of IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Program).

Reference: GEIA-ACCENT database, an international cooperative activity of AIMES/IGBP, sponsored by the ACCENT EU Network of Excellence, available from http://www.geiacenter.org and http://www.accent-network.org, 2005