The International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) was formed in 1990 to address growing international concern over rapid changes observed in the Earth’s atmosphere. IGACs´ mission is to coordinate and foster atmospheric chemistry research towards a sustainable world by integrating, synthesizing, guiding, and adding value to research undertaken by individual scientists through initiating new activities, acting as a hub of communication for the international atmospheric chemistry research community, and through building scientific capacity. IGAC is a Core Project under the umbrella of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and co-sponsored by the international Commission on Atmospheric Composition and Global Pollution (iCACGP).

IGACs’ biennial open science conferences are the primary mechanism for dissemination of scientific information across the atmospheric chemist community. The theme of the 2012 IGAC conference is “Atmospheric Chemistry in the Anthropocene”. Anthropocene is a term coined in 2000 by Paul Crutzen, recognizing that the influence of human behavior on the Earth in recent centuries has become so significant as to constitute a new geological era.