The First African School on Atmospheric Sciences

BACKGROUND AND GOAL OF THE SCHOOL

Climate change and air pollution are intimately linked; both are important societal concerns. Air pollution is often the source of anthropogenic forcing agents of climate and changes in climate alter air quality. The chemical species and processes governing them are, to a first approximation, the same. Africa is one of the most vulnerable continent due to its high exposure and low adaptive capacity. Although there are still large gaps in the available data, evidence of warming over land regions across Africa, consistent with anthropogenic climate change, has increased. Ambient air pollution is estimated to cause about 800,000 premature mortalities across Africa.

The African School on Atmospheric Sciences (ASAS) comes as a result of the need to improve Atmospheric and Climate Science skillfulness to African young generation scientists in order to meet environmental challenges faced by the African continent such as global warming and air pollution. The School programme is intended to train young African students who will have good skills for understanding changes in climate and will address the environmental protection which is one of the key pillars for the sustainable development of the continent. The aim is to prepare students for research or administrative tasks where solid knowledge in atmospheric and/or climate science is of concern.

The school aims at teaching students (expected to be  Ph.D. students, post-docs, researchers, university professors, personnel and technicians in environmental (air quality) government agencies) the complexity of the chemistry and physics that determine the composition of the atmosphere and to have a sense of how this science has been used to design governments policies to reduce the impact of human activity on the atmosphere. The courses will be designed to look at the chemical and physical processes important in controlling the concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere both in the gas and aerosol phase. It will give the basics to the understanding of the processes which determine the atmosphere’s temperature and the climate and how this may have changed in the past and may change into the future. The applications of the fundamentals will be exemplified with current environmental issues. 

The importance of chemistry in the urban, background and upper atmosphere will be presented both for gas and aerosol phases. Computer models play a central role in our understanding of atmospheric pollution, a range of these models will be presented. The different analytical techniques used to measure the composition of the air on the ground, from aircraft and from space will be discussed.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

1. Familiarity with the use of the fundamentals in atmospheric research on air quality and climate change.

2.  Ability to apply the basic knowledge of these fundamentals to carry out laboratory studies, field measurements, and modeling of atmospheric chemistry related to issues that include air quality and  climate change.

3. Ability to understand research papers dealing with these issues.

No formal prerequisites, but basic level understanding of chemistry or physics highly recommended. 

The school duration will be one week long in November 2022 (1-7 November), and involves lectures and practical training exercises using educational computer programs and e-learning tools.