The importance of understanding and monitoring atmospheric physics has increased drastically in recent years due to the anthropogenic impact on climate.
One crucial research field is the understanding of wind and temperature distributions in the atmosphere to enhance climate models and improve weather forecasts.
Advancing atmospheric research with lidar technology
Andøya Space is partner in the EU-funded EULIAA project which aims for the development of a European lidar array autonomously measuring the atmospheric winds and temperature from 5 km up to 50 km in hard to reach areas over a long period of time.
EULIAA is an acronym for European Lidar Array for Atmospheric Climate Monitoring, and Andøya Space, with the Alomar Observatory, is one of seven partners in the project, which not only aims to improve lidar measurements, but also making the data available in near real time into European databases such as Copernicus.
Recent visit
Together with our project partners from Bundesamt für Meteorologie und Klimatologie MeteoSchweiz and Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), our project manager Laura-Kristin Scholtz and Director Ground-Based Instrumentation Martin Flügge visited the Jungfraujoch Research station in the Swiss Alps to find a suitable location for the operational test of one of EULIAA project lidar units that currently are under development by Fraunhofer ILT, Altechnaand Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP).
A similar project lidar unit will also be tested at Andøya Space’s Alomar Observatory in northern Norway in the future.
The visit to the Jungfraujoch Research station revealed that both research observatories face quite similar challenges when it comes to the operation of sensible scientific instruments at locations that are haunted by harsh winds and freezing temperatures.
The Alomar Observatory
The observatory is located on top of the Ramnan mountain (380 meters) on the island of Andøya in northern Norway, and enables international scientists to explore all layers of the atmosphere using lidar systems or passive remote sensing instruments.