MACC - Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate - is the current pre-operational atmospheric service of the European GMES programme. MACC provides data records on atmospheric composition for recent years, data for monitoring present conditions and forecasts of the distribution of key constituents for a few days ahead. MACC combines state-of-the-art atmospheric modelling with Earth observation data to provide information services covering European Air Quality, Global Atmospheric Composition, Climate, and UV and Solar Energy.

 

MACC takes as its input comprehensive sets of satellite data from many tens of instruments supplying information on atmospheric dynamics, thermodynamics and composition, made available by space agencies and institutions with which the agencies collaborate to produce retrieved data products. The satellite data are supplemented by in-situ data from meteorological networks and a limited amount of data from networks providing in-situ measurements of atmospheric composition. Data are processed to provide a range of products related to climate forcing, air quality, stratospheric ozone, UV radiation at the earth’s surface and resources for solar power generation. Additional in-situ data are used for validating the processing systems and the products they supply. MACC operates a value-adding chain which extracts information from as wide a range of observing systems as possible and combines the information in a set of data and graphical products that have more complete spatial and temporal coverage and are more readily applicable than the data provided directly by the observing systems.