• 40.600°N 15.720°E 760 m a.s.l.

Observational platform

Italy

• Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis (IMAA)

http://www.ciao.imaa.cnr.it/

• Donato Summa
  Facility PI (since 15 Oct 2024)

CIAO is equipped with the state-of-the-art systems for remote-sensing and in-situ measurements of aerosol and trace gases, specially after the recent upgrade. The site is located on the Southern Apennine in Italy, in a plain surrounded by low mountains, less than 100 km away from the West, South and East coasts. Therefore, it operates in a typical mountain weather strongly influenced by Mediterranean atmospheric circulation, resulting in generally dry, hot summers and cold winters.
Most of the surrounding land is classified as arable crops in non-irrigated areas, followed by broad-leaved woods and coniferous forests, sclerophyllous or wooded/shrubby areas and natural grazing areas and grasslands. The prevailing wind direction occurring at the site is W-WSW-SW.

The scientific goal pursued at CIAO since its beginning is the long-term measurements for the climatology of aerosol and cloud properties. The main research lines include: a) design and implementation of lidars for aerosol, water vapour and cloud studies; b) development of algorithms for the integration of lidar and microwave radiometer measurements; c) integration of remote-sensing techniques and in-situ measurements for synergistic investigation of aerosol; d) definition of measurement protocols, quality assurance programs and data managing strategies; e) analysis of the physical and dynamical processes related to aerosol transport, their modification and classification. Besides the compliance to the ACTRIS guidelines, measurements are in line with the main ground-based observation networks and the major international standards provided by the WMO, aiming at establishing a long-term, harmonised and statistically significant database of aerosol measurements for climatological studies.

• Madonna et al. (2011). CIAO: the CNR-IMAA advanced observatory for atmospheric research. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 4(6), 1191-1208. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-4-1191-2011