Home - Clear air

Clear air is a consortium of R&D organizations who make a contribution to the field of atmospheric monitoring.

We have a strong focus on the design and development of innovative satellite instruments, retrieval algorithms and the modeling of atmospheric chemistry and emissions.

More about our research

Mission and Vision

The Clear Air consortium comprises of R&D organizations who are involved research and technology development for monitoring of the atmosphere. We aim at being globally outstanding for the use of satellite instrumentation and data products for the understanding and mitigation of climate change, air pollution and preservation of biodiversity.

The mission of Clear Air is to

To align Dutch national expertise and R&D efforts in this field;
To stimulate collaboration within the (inter)national Earth Observation community and across research domains;
To develop applications that can be used in and beyond the air quality and climate domain that will benefit science and society;
To broaden the use and thus impact of our knowledge and satellite data by policy makers and scientists alike;
To cooperate with the growing commercial space sector and data service providers market to allow spin-offs;
To develop a national Earth observation strategy and intensify the national space programme for Earth observation, including the development of new instruments.

Publications and press releases from or supported by Clear air

The Elegance of Greenhouse Gases and the Crucial Role of CO2 in Climate Change

Blog 3 March 2025

Peter Kuipers Munneke explains the greenhouse effect and CO2's role in climate change, emphasizing that the problem lies not in scientific clarity but in the established order prioritizing economic gains over the laws of physics. He stresses the urgent need for action to mitigate the impacts of global warming.

Netherlands nitrogen case is a goldmine for global atmospheric science

Interview 15 August 2024

Nitrogen in the air and in our nature worries us and hinders our potential. It would be good to know much more accurately and much more certain where it sits, how it gets there and how to prevent or reduce it. Is that even possible? "Yes," say three leading Dutch atmospheric scientists confidently. "If you have a good measuring instrument in space, and combine its measurement data correctly with ground measurements in a model."

EarthCARE satellite successfully launched

News 29 May 2024

The EarthCARE satellite, which is poised to revolutionise our understanding of how clouds and aerosols affect our climate with its four state-of-the-art instruments, has been launched successfully.

SRON

SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), the Dutch national expertise institute for scientific space research, part of the Dutch Research Council NWO. The institute combines science, technology and engineering. Its scientific expertise is in atmospheric satellite remote sensing, in particular radiative transport and trace gas and aerosol retrieval algorithms and CO, methane, CO2 emission quantification. SRON develops enabling technology and space-qualified instrumentation spanning the range from X-ray to far-infrared wavelengths;

KNMI

The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), an agency of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the national research and information centre for weather and climate. KNMI is Principal Investigator of both OMI that flies on NASA’s Aura satellite (launched 2004), and TROPOMI: the satellite instrument on board of the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite (launched 2017) and expert in retrieval algorithm development for trace gases and aerosols and interpretation of satellite data for air quality and climate research

TNO

The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), a TO2 institute and 30+ year developer and supplier of optical satellite instruments and systems (hardware) for aerospace among which instruments that measure the composition of the atmosphere from space. The institute also has strong expertise in satellite data utilisation (assimilation), for example for analyzing and monitoring emissions and air quality.

TU Delft

Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), performing research, and engineering of end-to-end space systems. The university is ranked number 1 in Europe and top-5 worldwide on the subject of Aerospace Engineering. The university has also relevant expertise on atmospheric chemistry, data retrieval, supercomputing, and optical instrumentation. Its Climate and Delft Space Institute bring together the expertise of scientists across the university in the field of data-based climate knowledge for mitigation, adaptation, space instrumentation and policy.

World leading research in atmospheric monitoring to support climate action, reducing air pollution and the loss of biodiversity