Cavo Greco campaign was a 3-month campaign taking place between December 2021 and February 2022. The measurement site, located at 34°57’41”N and 34°04’57”E at the extreme South-East of Cyprus, approximately at 20 meters above sea level, was on the previous radio relay site.
Today the CAO team gathered on the roof of the NTL building to learn how to maintain and run the sun photometer, and also as a side effect enjoy a sunny but windy spring day.
At Ineia, north Paphos, the first data from the instrument Picarro G2401 arrived just before the festive season.
CAO’s Dr. Maximilien Desservettaz is joining the National observatory of Athens (GR) to study air pollution in one of the European most polluted cities: Ioannina.
Prof Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, PhD student Emeric Germain and technical expert Mr Pierre-Yves Quehe have relocated a Picarro (greenhouse gases) and Gas Chromatography (non-methane hydrocarbons) instruments in a mobile station at Capo Greko, on Cyprus east coast.
During mid-October 2021, mineral dust was suspended in the atmosphere over Cyprus, causing local residents to notice the appearance of “sand” in exposed surfaces across the island.
2021 has seen several arrivals and departures: Joining CAO are Prof Franco Marenco, who is building the remote sensing research effort within CAO and CARE-C; Prof Tuija Jokinen, with expertise is particle formation and arctic atmospheric chemistry; she takes the lead of the CAO network. Ms Alkistis Papetta, starting her PhD in remote sensing; Ms Nikoleta Lekaki, joining CAO’s technical experts team from CARE-C’s Innovation Laboratory, with expertise on optical particle counter and size separation; Mr Moreno Parolin, joining CAO’s technical experts team, with long expertise on air quality monitoring instrumentation.
During the summer 2021, the CAO team has been working hard to prepare the new CAO station at Troodos mountains (34°56’N 32°51’E, >1800 m a.s.l.).
The Cyprus Atmospheric Observatory has received 4 palettes with close to 500 kg of new instrumentation, containing two full sets of state-of-the-art air quality gas analysers.