Moisture Isotopes in the Biosphere and Atmosphere


Current State of the Network


On 1 June 2004, the enrollment of both regional representatives and sampling sites commenced with the goal for sampling programme commencement period of April/May 2005. The regional representatives and representatives from the central analysis laboratories met in Vienna during 2-4 May 2005 to discuss the results of the efforts made so far, analytical capacity and sampling protocols in an effort to assess the current state of the network and to decide on the future directions of the network.

Figure 1. Current site distribution of the IAEA-MIBA network. Pink dots are the sites that are currently online which means that participants have the capacity to collect, extract and analyze all samples. Yellow sites should be online within a year.

The meeting participants were:

Brent Helliker-IAEA, Pradeep Aggarwal-IAEA, Manfred Groening-IAEA, Alexander Knohl-USA, Leo Sternberg-USA, Guanghui Lin-China (in absentia), Graham Farquhar-Australia, Lawrence Flanagan-Canada (in absentia), Matthias Saurer-Switzerland, Howard Griffiths-United Kingdom, Ali Mubarik-Pakistan, Dan Yakir-Israel, Tahir Diop-Senegal, John Twining-Australia, Debbie Hemming-United Kingdom, Axel Suckow-IAEA, Luis Araguas-IAEA.

All of these participants were instrumental in developing the MIBA network as it currently stands. Furthermore, we offer a warm welcome to this group two new members, Mr. Mubarik Ali from Pakistan and Mr. Tahir Diop from Senegal. Their input to the meeting was important and their future efforts for site recruitment and sample analysis will be an integral component to the success of the network.