at Arctic Station Dirigibile Italia

The Arctic Station "Dirigibile Italia" is managed by CNR in the Ny-Alesund settlement (Svalbard Islands). Numerous monitoring and campaing activites are performed every year, from March to October, many of them involving ISAC scientists. The position at the Northern limit of the West Spitsbergen Current and the large international cooperation, have made of Ny-Ålesund a key area for a monitoring network in the Arctic region. CNR Station in Ny-Ålesund and the Arctic Strategic Project offer the opportunity to develop the potentialities of the Italian research and increase through a multidisciplinary approach the know-how of the complex processes and interactions connecting the different components of the climatic system (atmosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere). At the Italian station Dirigibile Italia, a large set of instruments were installed to investigate physical and chemical properties of atmosphere as well as the exchange fluxes of mass, the radiation and chemical substances at the atmosphere-land interface. Final aim is to create a scientific platform able to complement research activities provided by other international research groups and obtain a comprehensive data set useful to determine all components of the energy budget at the surface, their temporal variations, and role played by different processes involving air, snow, ice and land (permafrost and vegetation). Key element of such platform are the Amundsen-Nobile Climate Change Tower (in collaboration with ISP). With an height of 32 m and large possibility to host and operate many instruments, the tower permits to investigate energy budget in the surface layer, PBL dynamics and exchange fluxes (heat, momentum, chemicals) at the atmosphere-land interface.  The Gruvebadet Aerosol Laboratory (in collaboration with ISP) with its fully functioning in situ aerosol monitoring activities (in collaboration with University of Florence) and columnar aerosol profiling activities with a tethered baloon (in collaboration with UNIPE, University of Perugia). The Gruvebadet Aerosol Laboratory is located near the village of Ny-Alesund, in the Svalbard arcipelago. It is equipped to host aerosol sampling for measurements of chemical, physical and optical properties. It is  operative from March to October each year.