ATTO

"ATTO" stands for Amazon Tall Tower Observatory. The German-Brazilian joint project was launched in 2009. It is managed by the Max Planck Institutes for Biogeochemistry in Jena and for Chemistry in Mainz, as well as by the Brazilian INPA and the Amazon State University (UEA) in Manaus. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações (MCTI), the Max Planck Society and the Brazilian organizations including FAPEAM and individual researchers bring funding from other scientific funding agencies. 

The tower aims at delivering groundbreaking findings which will be the basis for improved climate models. With a height of 325 meters the tower extends the ground-level boundary layer, and provides information taken from approximately 100 squarekilometers from the world´s largest forest area.

The Amazon region is of global significance: Nowhere on Earth harbours as many different species of flora and fauna as the South American Amazon region. Its rainforests play a vital role worldwide for the carbon cycle, water resources and thus for the global climate. At the same time, they have become the focus of public attention due to further deforestation and their role as a potential tipping element in climate change.

ATTO is the counterpart of the 2006 completed ZOTTO tower that stands in Siberia and the the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry is also involved. ATTO is integrated into an existing structure of smaller Brazilian measuring towers. The cost for the construction of ATTO including the first five years of running were roughly 8.4 million € which were financed by Germany and Brazil in equal parts.

From the German side, the project coordination took place in the start phase from 2010 to 2017 by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kesselmeier in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Meinrat O. Andreae at the MPI for Chemistry, since June 1, 2017 by Prof. Dr. Susan Trumbore from the MPI for Biogeochemistry, Jena, in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Pöschl from the MPI for Chemistry. Current information: www.attoproject.org