\u2013 This extended time span is important, continues Lund Myhre, \u2013 because comparable observations over time and in geographical distribution are crucial for improving our knowledge of different processes and long-term trends in the atmosphere. This knowledge plays a decisive role in how European countries will meet the societal and environmental challenges that will arise over the next few decades, such as air quality and climate change.<\/p>\n
ACTRIS provides quality assured data and data products for the whole of Europe, with all key variables for particles, clouds and reactive gases in the atmosphere. All key optical and physical properties of particles are included, such as size distribution, scattering and absorption of particles, chemical composition with high time resolution, and distribution of particles in height using lidar measurements, as well as different cloud variables. In addition, reactive gases, including a wide range of light hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds across Europe, are measured. The ACTRIS data form the basis for large and wide research in climate, air quality and weather forecast.<\/p>\n
In addition to data access, ACTRIS also provides access to advanced laboratories and field observatories. Eventually, the ACTRIS research infrastructure will also provide access to atmospheric simulation chambers, which today is part of the EUROCHAMP infrastructure. This includes laboratories and chambers to study reaction rates for relevant processes that occur in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\u2026and for managing authorities in Norway and Europe<\/h2>\n
National and international authorities are key users of ACTRIS services today, and this will be strengthened in the future. ACTRIS will provide services necessary to ensure that national data for particle and reactive gases are harmonized at an international level, so that they can be used in regional and continental scale assessments of the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
Such harmonization is necessary in order to assess the impact of environmental measures, develop more effective climate measures and to verify binding environmental agreements at national, European and international levels. Many instruments included in the Norwegian Environment Agency\u2019s program for national monitoring of greenhouse gases and particles are now quality assured through the EU project ACTRIS-2. A continuation of this is important in order to obtain good data also in the future<\/p>\n
The access to and continuation of all research data and other services included in ACTRIS will be strengthened in the future. All countries contributing to this will have free access to all ACTRIS services.<\/p>\n
NILU in ACTRIS<\/h2>\n
NILU contributes measurement data from the observatories in Svalbard (Zeppelin), Antarctica (Trollhaugen) and Aust-Agder (Birkenes). In addition, NILU manages the extensive data centre activity in ACTRIS, and coordinates all data flow and curation. All data are available through the ACTRIS data portal, http:\/\/actris.nilu.no.<\/a><\/p>\n Another part of NILU\u2019s role is being responsible for collecting, storing, accessing and documenting all ground-level observations. This is done in EBAS, http:\/\/ebas.nilu.no<\/a>, which is topic data base for these measurements and datasets.<\/p>\n A large group at NILU (see photo below) is involved in the data centre activity, and in a recent evaluation they received high praise for being able to harmonize heterogeneous data, making the products both useful and easily accessible.<\/p>\n \u2013 We work hard to facilitate both easy uploading and downloading of data in ACTRIS, says Cathrine Lund Myhre.<\/p>\n \u2013 The data are very important for research groups all over the world, and a summary shows that since January 2015, ACTRIS users have downloaded more than 24,000 annual data sets of measurements. In 2016 alone, we had on average more than 1100 different visits to EBAS per month, and approximately 1050 sets of ACTRIS data were downloaded every month. Improving the infrastructure to meet the research communities\u2019 need for different data, formats and access is a continuous work we look forward to improving even more.<\/p>\n Read annual report 2016 in pdf<\/a><\/p>\n Read annual report on the web (www.issuu.com):<\/p>\n![\"ACTRIS-teamet](\"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/ACTRIS-prosjekt_760.jpg\")
Read NILU annual report 2016:<\/h2>\n