Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
Climate: ENEA Lampedusa Observatory joins global solar and infrared radiation network
The ENEA Lampedusa Atmospheric Observatory has entered the World Radiation Monitoring Center (WRMC), the large archive of the global Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN), which provides data on solar and infrared radiation fluxes for the validation of satellite observations and climate modeling. The result - reached after a six-month evaluation period - was due to the excellent quality of the measurements, their uniqueness, and the representativeness of the vast Central Mediterranean area.
The BSRN archive collects solar and infrared radiation fluxes measurements from 43 reference stations located in climatically significant areas of the planet. It can be accessed on the PANGAEA portal, the Earth Sciences digital data library.
“The radiation budget of the Earth-atmosphere system plays a fundamental role in determining the thermal conditions and circulation of the atmosphere and the ocean, influencing the hydrological cycle and shaping the main characteristics of the Earth’s climate”, pointed out Daniela Meloni at the ENEA Laboratory of Models and Measurements for Air Quality and Climate Observations, who coordinates the Observatory’s measurements within the BSRN network. “The measurements of the composition and structure of the atmosphere conducted jointly with radiation measurements are crucial to understand the variations in the radiative balance. For example: increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases over time cause temperatures to increase, which in turn strongly affect the infrared radiation emitted by the atmosphere”, said Meloni
Since 2004, the ENEA Atmospheric Observatory in Lampedusa, near the Capo Grecale lighthouse, has been measuring surface radiatiative fluxes, made available to the scientific community. In 2016, the atmospheric observatory's measurements were joined by those taken at sea by the Oceanographic Observatory, located 5 kilometers off the coast, to study air-sea interaction and, more recently, those conducted in the new Terrestrial Ecosystems Observatory, in the western part of the island, to assess CO2 exchanges between vegetation and the atmosphere.
To date, the Lampedusa Observatory is considered an international point of reference for research on climate processes: in fact, it offers the scientific community integrated information on the marine, terrestrial and atmospheric habitats in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most responsive regions to climate change, representative of what is happening on a global scale. The Integrated Observatory data contributes to various global climate measurement networks (e.g., the World Meteorological Organization's Global Atmosphere Watch or the Aerosol Robotic Network operated by NASA) and major European environmental research infrastructures, both on the carbon cycle in the atmospheric, sea, and ecosystem compartments (Integrated Carbon Observing System, ICOS) and on the detection of atmospheric (Aerosol, Clouds, and Trace gases Research Infrastructure, ACTRIS) and marine (European Multidisciplinary Sea Floor and Water Column Observatory, EMSO) components.
The ENEA Lampedusa Observatory contributes to the main global and European observation networks by providing integrated information on the marine, terrestrial and atmospheric sectors and also providing a comprehensive picture of the carbon cycle. In addition to the study of solar and infrared radiation, the Atmospheric Observatory contributes to studies on clouds, aerosols and various greenhouse gases, including water vapor, CO2, nitrous oxide (N2O), halogenated compounds, but also methane (CH4), responsible for more than 30% of anthropogenic climate warming.
The Oceanographic Observatory, a hi-tech buoy equipped with advanced sensor systems to study chemical and physical properties of waters, validation of satellite observations and which provides meteorological, temperature, pressure, pH, chlorophyll and dissolved organic matter data to the scientific community, is situated five kilometers off the coast. Recently measurements conducted in the Terrestrial Ecosystems Observatory related to CO2 exchanges between vegetation and the atmosphere have been added, which provide an integrated overall picture of the exchanges and distribution of CO2 and energy between sea, land and atmosphere regulating the climate of the entire region.
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