Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation (LAGEO) was established in 1995 and became one of the Key Laboratory of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2008. LAGEO emphasizes both fundamental research and high-tech research and development, and sets the major research directions as middle atmosphere and global environmental observation, which include the following four aspects: 1) middle atmosphere process and its weather and climatic effects, 2) atmospheric radiation, atmospheric and environmental remote sensing, 3) global atmospheric electricity, lightning and thunderstorm electricity, and 4) high-tech development and application for atmospheric observation.

Since the establishment of LAGEO, much progress has been made in above fields. In order to reveal the rapidly growing research advances made by scientists of LAGEO, this special issue of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters (AOSL) is organized. The special issue includes 17 papers covering a comprehensive collection of novel studies which cover middle atmosphere process, spatio-temporal variation of trace gases in the troposphere and stratosphere, lighting activity, atmospheric detection technology, in situ measurements and remote sensing of atmospheric components.

The editor would like to thank all authors for their efforts to contribute with excellent and timely papers to this special issue. All reviewers are further acknowledged for their critical comments and suggestions which undoub-tedly improved the quality of all papers.