ACTRIS in Europe
The Aerosols, Clouds and Trace gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) is a distributed pan-European environmental research infrastructure.
ACTRIS is dedicated to high-quality observation of aerosols, clouds, trace gases and exploration of their interactions. It delivers precision data, services and procedures regarding the 4D variability of clouds, short-lived atmospheric species and the physical, optical and chemical properties of aerosols to improve the current capacity to analyse, understand and predict past, current and future evolution of the atmospheric environment. ACTRIS serves a vast community of users working on observations, experiments, models, satellite data, analysis and predicting systems and offers access to advanced technological platforms for exploration of the relevant atmospheric processes in the fields of climate change and air quality.
The ACTRIS RI has evolved and matured over a number of years and includes National Facilities in 21 European countries with more than 80 observatory or exploratory facilities, with field stations, laboratories and measurements distributed widely across Europe, and including sites located outside Europe but owned and operated by European RPOs (in the Arctic, Antarctica, Tropics).
The proposed location of the European-level Central Facilities (Head Office, Calibration Centres and Data Centre) is distributed across 11 different countries in Europe.
The estimated capital value invested until now amounts to 450 M€, with an additional 190 M€ required for completing the construction phase, a running costs of 6 M€/year for the preparation phase and 50 M€/year for the operation phase.
ACTRIS serves a vast community of users in the fields of climate change and air quality that rely on the long-term quality-assured observations of short-lived atmospheric components − aerosols, clouds, trace gases − that ACTRIS provides.