Current research on air pollution – climate interactions focuses on particular regions of the planet considered to be the most vulnerable to global change, that are called "hotspots". These areas encompass pollution hotspots with high levels of toxic compounds (PM, NOx, ozone) and climate-warming agents (ozone and black carbon) as well as background regions where positive feedbacks between atmospheric warming and ecosystem lead to an amplification of the climate change.

Detecting atmospheric composition temporal and spatial changes and understanding the atmospheric lifecycle of compounds acting as climate forcers and/or being toxic to humans or ecosystems is of paramount importance in the current international research.

A large fraction of the uncertainty about the climate impacts of natural and anthropogenic emissions in the atmosphere resides in the complexity of aerosol effects and related feedbacks on radiation through cloud formation, lifetime and precipitation.

- Improvement of our knowledge of atmospheric processes (e.g., turbulence, convection, microphysics, radiation) through the synergistic use of Earth Observations and modeling tools at different scales

Aim: Understanding the past, current and future global changes in the Earth system and the fundamental physical and dynamical processes affecting climate variability and trends at different spatial and temporal scales.

Aim: Understanding the processes and feedbacks leading to the amplification of climate changes and of their impacts in so-called hotspot areas (polar regions, mountain areas, the Mediterranean basin, and urban environments) and study of climate predictability in these areas.