Private sector

Continuous real-time measurements of plant pollen in the background sub-Arctic atmosphere. The measurements are conducted with in-situ observations (using the Swissens Poleno Jupiter automatic pollen analyzer).

The Pallastunturi facility offers a designated air space for research flights with e.g. UAV’s and tethered balloon systems. The airspace is horizontally 7km*7km, with 2km ceiling altitude above ground level. Flying beyond visual line of sight is permitted, making vertical measurements through clouds possible.

Physical access is provided to operate user’s own airborne platforms, or utilizing measurements with the FMI’s UAV- fleet. FMI’s measurements encompass ACTRIS aerosol in situ-, and cloud in situ measurements, as well as meteorological parameters.

Operations are supported by continuous measurements of e.g. surface meteorological conditions, cloud base height, boundary layer height and cloud remote sensing observations. The Sammaltunturi station measurements (565 a.s.l.) can be used as reference to airborne observations.

The opportunity is ideal for research on the vertical distribution of atmospheric composition in the sub-Arctic as well as instrument testing. 

The ambient air in Pallastunturi is amongst the cleanest in the World, with particle number concentrations reaching levels of 10 #/cm3 during cold winter days, and up to a few thousand #/cm3 during strong biological activity in the summer. This provides an excellent opportunity to study the atmospheric composition of sub-Arctic air, where climate change is affecting the atmospheric composition rapidly.

In addition to research services, the station offers excellent possibilities for instrument development and -testing in the low concentration, Arctic setting.

Virtual Access is offered to continuous measurements conducted for ACTRIS aerosol in situ-, trace gases in situ-, cloud in situ- and cloud remote sensing measurements. Pallastunturi also hosts an air quality background supersite fulfilling the requirements of the new European air quality guidelines. Physical- and remote Access for installing additional instruments at the station is provided.

The AIDA facility provides the possibility of testing (new) sampling instruments for water vapor, aerosols, ice-nucleating particles, cloud droplets and ice crystals, including those used for field measurements or on research aircrafts, and to perform instrument intercomparisons under well-defined and controlled laboratory conditions.

TIME CONSTRAINTS: None, although access has to be coordinated with other activities in laboratory.

This service for collaborative experiment series with a duration of up to 3 or 4 weeks on investigating aerosol-cloud-climate processes includes:

• experiment planning,
• administrative and technical support for installing and operating user instruments at the facility,
• technical and scientific support in operating the facility and its standard instrumentation needed for the experiments,
• training on facility operation procedures, facility instruments and scientific background,
• data provision
• support on analyzing and evaluating the chamber-specific data.

TIME CONSTRAINTS: None, although access has to be coordinated with other activities in laboratory

USRL focuses on cost-effective UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) atmospheric applications (vertical profiling, 3D mapping, plume tracking) with miniaturized and lightweight atmospheric sensors fulfilling ACTRIS QA/QC and SOPs (e.g. Aerosol Number Size Concentration, Black Carbon Concentration). It comprises laboratories (150m²) with weather chamber for sensor qualification, specialised mechanical/electronic workshops, as well as a private airfield and permanent airspace (with max ceiling of 3km altitude) located nearby the Cyprus Atmospheric Observatory (ACTRIS National Facility candidate, https://cao.cyi.ac.cy/). USRL is operated by a team of 13 staff of experienced engineers (electronic, software, system, communication, mechanic /material), professional pilots (flying commercial airliners), and experienced researchers in atmospheric sciences. USRL includes a large fleet of customized UAVs (fixed and rotary wings) with different payload capacity (up to 10kg) and miniature air sensors.

Services currently offered by the facility: USRL provides 1) research support in performing intensive field campaigns (profiling, 3D mapping) of UAV-sensor systems, 2) technical support through customized integration of lightweight sensors into UAVs (multi-copter, fixed wing), 3) innovation support through the optimization of lightweight instrumentation for their specific use onboard UAVs, 4) quality UAV training of new users (pilots and scientists). 

USRL has been successfully used in the past for in-situ validation of LIDAR retrieval algorithms (Mamali et al., 2018; Marinou et al., 2019), Ice Nuclei measurements in the cloud region (Schrod et al., 2017), on-flight validation of lightweight absorption sensors (Pikridas et al., 2019), or for the characterisation (weather chamber) of miniaturized aerosol sensors (Bezantakos et al., 2018). USRL was candidate (as TNA provider) for the 3rd TNA call of ENVRI+, and has been successfully used many large international field campaigns (EU-FP7 BACCHUS in Cyprus; H2020-ACTRIS2 in Greece and Finland; AESA-ASKOS in Cape Verde) and for the provision of services to public/private collaborators (e.g. NOA, Greece; CEA, France). Potential new users: ISARRA Community (International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely piloted Aircraft; http://www.isarra.org/); >250 members, EU Research Infrastructure (ICOS, EUFAR) partners from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East region, governmental Units for Environmental monitoring, Security and civil protection. Support/training for SMEs developing UAV-sensor technology in compliance with EU directives (i.e. UAV-based stack emissions), for instrument testing and optimization, and training for UAV flight operation.

Novel remote access capabilities added: integration, testing and flights of new atmospheric sensors in USRL drones, performance of research (field) campaigns and UAV-sensor optimization with remote guidance by the end user.  

ACD-C with its twin chamber setup is a unique research infrastructure to study VOC degradation mechanism, SOA formation processes, the chemical composition of the gas/ particle phase, and toxicological effects of formed SOA. The twin chamber is equipped with a broad online and offline instrumentation, including two SMPS, PTR-TOFMS, PTR-QMS, two CAPS, two sub-ppb level NO2 analysers, an AMS, a CI-APi-TOFMS to comprehensively characterize a wide variety of chamber processes. 
The Leipzig Biomass Burning Facility (LBBF) as additional part of ACD-C allows studies on primary emissions as well as the processing of the emitted smoke. A broad online and offline instrumentation at ACD-C enables highly sophisticated research on tropospheric multiphase processes to provide the heighest level of understanding on a molecular level.
 

a) Hands-on training sessions on state of the art analytical instrumentation connected to ACD-C. 
b) Training on how to perform chamber experiments by experienced scientists.