ARSCliSys   
Atmospheric Remote Sensing and Climate System Research Group
Head: Gottfried Kirchengast

The ARSCliSys Research Group investigates modern satellite-based methods for remote sensing of the atmosphere and the climate system as well as ground-based methods with very high resolution. How strong is global warming already today and how will it evolve in the future? How does it affect the alpine region, Austria, Styria?
A particularly suited method to help answer questions like this with a worldwide view is the occultation technique based on signals from global navigation satellites (GPS, Galileo) or Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. ARSCliSys stands amongst the leading groups internationally in the research on and utilization of this type of methods. In the alpine region as a specific focus area the WegenerNet is a pioneering experiment of the group: a novel climate station network in Eastern Styria/Austria for observing weather and climate at 1 km-scale resolution.
Satellite data and ground-based data are used together with climate model simulations for the study of climate variability, trends, and weather and climate extremes. The focus interests in this work are diagnosing global climate change, climate model validation and improvement, and bridging to regional and local climate and environmental change research, especially in the Alpine region, where ARSCliSys tightly cooperates with ReLoClim.
The group is also the joint group of WegCenter and IGAM/Inst. of Physics (the WegCenter's base institute at the natural sciences faculty), being part of the Atmospheric Remote Sensing, Climate Physics, and Environmental Meteorology (ACE) Working Group at IGAM.