The full list of projects contains the entire database hosted on this portal, across the available directories. The projects and activities (across all directories/catalogs) are also available by country of origin, by geographical region, or by directory.
Denmark has obligations according to the agreements in the Montreal Protocol, ie. for the monitoring of the ozone layer. This project is a fullfilment of these obligations, and the work is being supported by the Danish Environment Protection Agency (Danish EPA) through a DANCEA funding. Recommandations for the monitoring are updated every 3rd year via the Ozone Research Managers (ORM) Meeting at WMO in Geneva. The most recent meeting was in 2017. The monitoring program was initiated in 2002. The current partnership consists of Latmos (FR), NASA (US) and DMI (DK). Monitoring of the ozone layer and measurement of the UV radiation currently takes place in 2 locations in Greenland: Kangerlussuaq and Ittoqqortoormiit. In Kangerlussuaq the instrumentation consists of a Brewer spectrometer capable of measuring the ozone column and doing UVB scans, a SAOZ spectrometer measuring ozone and NO2, and an Aeronet Sun Photometer (hosted for NASA). In Ittoqqortoormiit the instrumentation consists of an ozone balloon borne sounding station, a SAOZ spectrometer (hosted for Latmos), a GUV 2511 broadband instrument and an Aeronet Sun Photometer (hosted for NASA). Retrieved data is uploaded to international databases (WOUDC, NDACC & NILU). Retrieved data is used to correct satellite measurements and to monitor the state of the ozone layer.
Monitoring climatological and hydrological parameters in a low arctic environment.
National Environmental Monitoring in Sweden in "Air" programme and sub-programme "the thickness of the ozon layer". The project follows changes in the thickness of the ozone layer in the atmosphere over Sweden.
FUVIRC will serve ecosystem research, human health research and atmospheric chemistry research by providing UV monitoring data and guidance (i.e. calibration of instruments, maintenance of field test sites), research facilities (laboratories and accommodation), instruments and equipment.
The main objective of the facility is to enhance the international scientific co-operation at the seven Finnish research stations and to offer a very attractive and unique place for multidisciplinary environmental and atmospheric research in the most arctic region of the European Union. Factors such as, arctic-subarctic and alpine-subalpine environment, northern populations, arctic winters with snow, changes in the Earth's electromagnetic environment due to external disturbances and exceptionally long series of observations of many ecological and atmospheric variables should interest new users.
The UV-monitoring network has provided 15 years of high quality, continuous measurements of solar UV radiation. The network is the hub of all activities related to UV forecasting and information to the public, aiming to reduce the high number of cases of acute and chronic negative health effects from excessive UV exposure.
GAW serves as an early warning system to detect further changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and changes in the ozone layer, and in the long-range transport of pollutants, including acidity and toxicity of rain as well as the atmospheric burden of aerosols.
The objective of our work with arctic terrestrial plants and with algae is to study the range of climate adaptation as is expressed in special ultrastructure of cells and tissues, in photosynthetic metabolism, in antioxidative and sun screen compounds under a cold and reduced PAR / UV-B environment (climate different to alpine conditions). This is a comparison of ecophysiological processes already worked out mainly from high alpine plants, which live periodically under stronger cold and under different light regimes, especially higher UV-B and PAR irradiation. We want to find out, whether adaptations found in some alpine organisms occur similarly in polar forms.
The effects of stratospheric ozone depletion and of global warming on the marine biosphere are still underexplored, especially in the Arctic. Seaweeds are very important primary producers but are strongly susceptible to enhanced UV radiation and elevated temperatures, especially their spores. The UV susceptibility of spores has previously been invoked to determine the depth distribution of seaweeds. Therefore, we will investigate the effect of different radiation and temperature conditions on the ultra-structure, physiology and biochemistry of spores from various brown and green algae growing in different water depths. Moreover, we will study competition between zoospores of various species of brown macroalgae in order to get an insight about biotic factors structuring seaweed communities and also to explain more clearly the present seaweed zonation pattern.
The main objective is to study the importance of aerosol particles on climate change and on human health. Particularly, the focus will be on the effect of biogenic aerosols on global aerosol load. During the recent years it has become obvious that homogeneous nucleation events of fresh aerosol particles take frequently place in the atmosphere, and that homogeneous nucleation and subsequent growth have significant role in determining atmospheric aerosol load. In order to be able to understand this we need to perform studies on formation and growth of biogenic aerosols including a) formation of their precursors by biological activities, b) related micrometeorology, c) atmospheric chemistry, and d) atmospheric phase transitions. Our approach covers both experimental (laboratory and field experiments) and theoretical (basic theories, simulations, model development) approaches.
The ZERO database contains all validated data from the Zackenberg Ecological Research Operations Basic Programmes (ClimateBasis, GeoBasis, BioBasis and MarinBasis). The purpose of the project is to run and update the database with new validated data after each succesfull field season. Data will be available for the public through the Zackenberg homepage linking to the NERI database. The yearly update is dependent on that each Basis programme delivers validated data in the proscribed format.
This project investigates how solar UV radiation affects planktonic food webs in the Arctic by changing the nutritional quality of the lower trophic levels. UV radiation has been documented to lead to oxidation of poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in phytoplankton. These PUFAs cannot be synthesized de novo by zooplankton, but are key molecules for the marine pelagic food web. A combined approach was chosen with both sampling of field data (physical as well as biological) and experiments which were carried out during two field seasons in Ny Ålesund in 2003 (april/may) and 2004 (may/june). In 2004, the main part of the field work consisted of an outdoor experiment where phytoplankton was exposed to different irradiation regimes, using the natural sunlight. Algae from all different treatments were used for feeding zooplankton in order to trace the transfer of irradiation-induced changes of the fatty acid composition in phytoplankton to the next trophic level. A number of additional parameters will be analysed as well, combined with the results of an extensive measurement series of both PAR- and UV light. The experiment was carried out on the old pier (Gamle Kaia), while the laboratory part took place in the Italian station ‘Dirigibile Italia’.
Plankton of shallow polar freshwater water bodies is exposed to increasing levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) due to the limited water depth. Daphnia (Crustacea, waterflea) and algae are common representatives of the food chain in these water bodies. Daphnia almost exclusively use lipids for energy storage, which they obtain from their food (mainly algae). Therefore, Daphnia and algae are closely linked to each other. Preliminary experiments on the UV-induced damage in phyto- and zooplankton point to lipids as one of the key players. With this application we want to identify how algae specific lipids and fatty acids (FA) are modified by UVR. The factors modifying UV-doses to the animals and their food are depth of the waterbody and DOC (absorbs UV). A pondsurvey shall provide a wide spectrum on ponds which vary in DOC and depth. Lipid analysis of Daphnia and their food of these ponds as well as physical parameters of the pond waters shall identify correlations between UV-exposure and specific fatty acids. This shall enable us to estimate the effect of solar UVR on the freshwater plankton community in polar ponds.
The goal of this project is to find the relationships between the UV solar spectral irradiances sampled at ground level in different cloudy situations. This information will be useful for a double target: to a better tuning of the UV Green model outputs and to evaluate the effects of the solar UV radiation on biological target. A second target is to have information about the cloud effect on computing the Umkehr model output (vertical Ozone profiles). This goal will be carried out installing in Ny-Ålesund a spectrophotometer Brewer to sample the UV irradiance synchronous with an automatic photo-camera taking pictures of sky. An analytical study of the two kinds of data allows finding the relationships searched.
The main objectives of ESAC II are the following: (1) Extend and improve the important existing Belgian contribution in atmospheric research started in the 50s, recognized internationally. (2) Investigate the chemistry of the atmosphere, to detect and understand its evolution, mainly with experimental means. Special attention will be paid to the evolution of the ozone layer and chemical species and processes with an impact on climate changes. (3) Support the Belgian policies and decisions regarding the Amendments to: - the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer; - the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions.
Effects of UV radiations on lipids, fatty acids and nutritional quality of Arctic marine algae and zooplankton
For the first time in Austria, routine monitoring of the ozone layer as well as routine spectral UV measurements have been performed at Sonnblick. Column ozone, ozone profile, SO2 column, Nox column and spectral UV (from 290 to 325 nm) has been measured with a Brewer spectrometer type MKIV (No 093) since 1994. From 1997 on broad band erythemal UV has been recorded with a Robertson Berger biometer. For registration of the spectral ultraviolet irradiance-particularly the spectral UVB-radiation- a Bentham spectrometer (double monochromator) has been adapted so that it can be used under the extreme climatic conditions on a mountain top. Routine measurements of the spectral irradiance in the spectral range of 280-500 nm are performed in 0.5 nm steps every half hour. Additional information on cloudiness is supplied by a upwards looking CCD camera equipped with a fish eye lense. Sonnblick station is embedded in the EDUCE, GAW and WMO networks.
Effects of UV-B radiation on microbial communities in Kongsfjorden in relation to metal and dissolved organic matter availabillity.
The purpose of the CHAOS_A project is to perform measurements under "Antarctic conditions" during the polar vortex period with the new assembled spectrometer in order to perform tasks that cannot be achieved at low latitudes namely OClO detection. Therefore the campaign focus more in technical aspects than scientific ones. The period of observation may be short to achieve results of scientific interest and those will depend on the meteorology of the stratosphere (position of the polar vortex relative to the station, temperatures at the lower stratosphere, etc). The OClO results will be compared with those obtained by the NILU (Andoya) and Heidelberg U.
The succession of macro- and microalgal communities in the Antarctic will be investigated in field experiments under various UV radiation (UVR) conditions and in the absence or presence of grazers. The observed differences in the succession process will be correlated to physiological traits of single species, especially in spores and germlings, which are the most vulnerable stages in their life histories. Photosynthetic activity of the different developmental stages will be measured routinely. Additionally we plan the determination of pigment composition, C:N ratios, content of UV protective pigments and of possible DNA damage. The experiments will start in spring, concomitant to the time of highest UVBR, due to the seasonal depletion of the ozone layer in the Antarctic region. Supplemental laboratory experiments will be conducted to determine the effects of UVR on spores and germlings of individual species. In addition to the above analyses, we plan to examine of UVR induced damage of cell fine structure and of the cytoskeleton. The results of both the field and laboratory experiments will allow us to predict the consequences of enhanced UVR for the diversity and stability of the algal community.