ICOS training in Paris-Saclay

Authors: Stuart Grange and Monika Hager

During the week of February 2, 2026, Stuart Grange and Monika Hager attended the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) Atmosphere Thematic Centre (ATC) training course hosted at Laboratoire des sciences du climat et de l'environnement (LSCE) in Paris-Saclay. Eight colleagues from other ICOS stations across Europe were also present. At Jungfraujoch, the online greenhouse gas measurements for ICOS are handled by Empa (notably CO₂, but also CO, CH₄, N₂O, among others) and the Climate and Environmental Physics Division (CEP) of the University of Bern operates the automated flask sampler and a radon monitor.

The training focused on the online and in situ monitoring of greenhouse gases utilising the cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) analysers from Picarro. The training course covered both the practical considerations of instrument installation and testing when running the analysers at monitoring stations, the very thorough and robust calibration strategies, and the quality control and assurance of observations once they have been collected. The training course will help improve the ICOS and ICOS-adjacent activities at the University of Bern and align them with ATC's recommendations and procedures. It was great to meet old and new colleagues, and Stuart and Monika thank the hosts at LSCE for a very successful and interesting week.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the SNSF for supporting ICOS-CH project (Phase 4; 20FI-0_229655) and the ICOS-ATC for hosting this training workshop.