Monitoring and modelling of biosphere/atmosphere exchange of gases and aerosols in Europe

Monitoring and modelling of deposition of air pollutants is essential to develop and evaluate policies to abate the effects related
to air pollution and to determine the losses of pollutants from the atmosphere. Techniques for monitoring wet deposition fluxes are
widely applied. A recent intercomparison experiment, however, showed that the uncertainty in wet deposition is relatively high, up
to 40%, apart from the fact that most samplers are biased because of a dry deposition contribution. Wet deposition amounts to
about 80% of the total deposition in Europe with a range of 10–90% and uncertainty should therefore be decreased. During recent
years the monitoring of dry deposition has become possible. Three sites have been operational for 5 years. The data are useful for
model development, but also for model evaluation and monitoring of progress in policy. Data show a decline in SO2 dry deposition,
whereas nitrogen deposition remained constant. Furthermore, surface affinities for pollutants changed leading to changes in
deposition. Deposition models have been further developed and tested with dry deposition measurements and total deposition
measurements on forests as derived from throughfall data. The comparison is reasonable given the measurement uncertainties.
Progress in ozone surface exchange modelling and monitoring shows that stomatal uptake can be quantified with reasonable
accuracy, but external surface uptake yields highest uncertainty