Springer Handbook of Atmospheric Measurements

This practical handbook provides a clearly structured, concise and comprehensive account of the huge variety of atmospheric and related measurements relevant to meteorologists and for the purpose of weather forecasting and climate research, but also to the practitioner in the wider field of environmental physics and ecology.

The Springer Handbook of Atmospheric Measurements is divided into six parts: The first part offers instructive descriptions of the basics of atmospheric measurements and the multitude of their influencing factors, fundamentals of quality control and standardization, as well as equations and tables of atmospheric, water, and soil quantities. The subsequent parts  present classical in-situ measurements as well as remote sensing techniques from both  ground-based as well as airborn or satellite-based methods. The next part focusses on complex measurements and methods that integrate different techniques to establish more holistic data. Brief discussions of measurements in soils and water, at plants, in urban and rural environments and for renewable energies demonstrate the potential of such applications. The final part  provides an overview of atmospheric and ecological networks.

Written by distinguished experts from academia and industry, each of the 64 chapters provides in-depth discussions of the available devices with their specifications, aspects of quality control, maintenance as well as their potential for the future. A large number of thoroughly compiled tables of physical quantities, sensors and system characteristics make this handbook a unique, universal and useful reference for the practitioner and absolutely essential for researchers, students, and technicians.

Thomas Foken is a retired Professor of Micrometeorology at the University of Bayreuth (Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research), Germany. He obtained his doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from Leipzig University in 1978 and the second doctoral degree (Dr. sc. nat.) from the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1990. He headed the laboratories of Boundary Layer Research and Land Surface Processes of the Meteorological Service of the GDR and the German Meteorological Service (DWD) in Potsdam (1981-1994) and Lindenberg (1994-1997). In 1997, Thomas Foken was appointed Professor of Micrometeorology. His main research areas relate to the interaction between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere, and the measurement and modelling of energy and matter fluxes with a strong focus on measurement devices. He has been actively involved in internationally organized experiments for which he worked e.g. in Russia, USA, Tibet, and Antarctica.

Thomas Foken published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and authored several textbooks, among them “Micrometeorology”. His research significantly advanced the application of the eddy-covariance method. His scientific contributions have been internationally recognized through various awards, including the Dionyz Stur Medal in Silver of the Slovak Academy of Science, the Award for Outstanding Achievements in Biometeorology of the American Meteorological Society, the Honor Badge of the Association of German Engineers (VDI), and the Honorary Membership of the Hungarian Meteorological Society. In recent years, he has been consultant for Arctic and forest fire projects, and lecturer at the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest. In Germany, Thomas Foken is responsible for the standardization of atmospheric in-situ measurement techniques (VDI/DIN, ISO). As a specialist for climate and climate change in Northern Bavaria, he is regularly invited to give lectures for school students at events organized by the Fridays for Futuremovement.