The North Atlantic Climate System: Integrated Studies (ACSIS)

Changes in the weather and climate of the North Atlantic have profound impacts on the Eastern USA and Western Europe. To better understand the coupled nature of these changes the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded ACSIS project (2016-2022) made observations and new model simulations as outlined in the Figure above. These activities have produced vast amounts of data and new insights. Our recent paper (Archibald et al., 2025) provides an overview of all the data that were collected and how they can be used by the community for further interpretation and to augment ongoing analyses.
A key set of observations to better understand atmospheric composition change over the oceans where the ACSIS aircraft campaigns, conducted using the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM). These campaigns (including 45 flights) sampled atmospheric composition from 8 km to 50 m above the ocean surface in the red region in the figure over 5 years; coinciding with two of the global Atmospheric Tomography missions of NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom).
This research has been supported by SOLAS endorsed project Atmospheric Composition and Radiative forcing changes due to UN International Ship Emissions regulations (ACRUISE).
Reference: Archibald, A.T., Sinha, B., Russo, M.R., et al. (2025). Data supporting the North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS) programme, including atmospheric composition; oceanographic and sea-ice observations (2016–2022); and output from ocean, atmosphere, land, and sea-ice models (1950–2050), Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 135–164. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-135-2025