Conclusion and outlook

Scientific work carried out by international teams has demonstrated with certainty that anthropogenic aerosol emissions have a significant influence on our planet's climatic equilibrium. Although this influence is highly regionalized, it can modulate the climate on a much larger scale. In order to assess the impact of human activities on future climate, we need to understand the processes involved throughout the life of aerosols in the atmosphere. The use of space observation coupled with regional and global modeling will be a major asset for more accurate assessments of aerosol feedback on climate. The new generation of instruments will enable us to advance our understanding by accessing measurements over continents and better resolved in the air column. One of the scientific community's key assets will be the Franco-American Calipso mission, due to set off in the first half of 2005, which...