• RADO: 44.348°N 26.029°E 93 m a.s.l.
• MARS: 44.344°N 26.012°E 77 m a.s.l.

Observational platform

Romania

• National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics (INOE)

http://environment.inoe.ro/

• Jeni Vasilescu
  Facility PI
• Doina Nicolae
  PI deputy

RADO-Bucharest is a ground-based fixed, GAW regional site located in southeastern Romania, in a peri-urban area, flat terrain, 6 km south-west from Bucharest city. It covers 20,000 m² of indoor and outdoor laboratories hosting a large variety of instruments for characterizing the status, structure, dynamics, and composition of the atmosphere.

The site is characterized by fog during spring and autumn, large differences in temperatures between winter (-20 °C) and Summer (+40 °C), long periods with clear sky, cirrus clouds or deep convection in summer, the presence of water and mixed-phase clouds in all seasons, and periods with strong winds.

The scientific focus of facility is to resolve the atmospheric scene by using the synergy of measurements and platforms, and advancing knowledge on the exchanges between near-surface and free troposphere, in order to better quantify the contribution of the long-range transport to the air quality. The site is ideal for studying aerosol microphysics, clear-sky direct aerosol radiative forcing, aerosol-cloud interaction, fog, local and long range transported pollution, satellite sub-pixel variability, etc.
The infrastructure at RADO-Bucharest combines ACTRIS compliant aerosol remote sensing, cloud remote sensing and aerosol in-situ instrumentation, along with complementary measurements for
meteorological parameters and radiation.

• Nemuc et al. (2013). Assessment of aerosol's mass concentrations from measured linear particle depolarization ratio (vertically resolved) and simulations. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6(11), 3243-3255. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-3243-2013
• Nicolae et al. (2013). Characterization of fresh and aged biomass burning events using multiwavelength Raman lidar and mass spectrometry. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 118(7), 2956-2965. https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50324
• Carstea et al. (2019). Columnar aerosol measurements in a continental southeastern Europe site: climatology and trends. Theor Appl Climatol, 137(3-4), 3149-3159. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-019-02805-z