Environment Department
CIEMAT participates in ACTRIS with its Madrid station as “Observational Platform” in the Aerosol In-situ (AIS) and Aerosol Remote Sensing (ARS) components.
CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas), is a public research organization (OPI) under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, with a staff of approximately 1,350 people and several research centers in Spain, with its headquarters in Madrid. Its activities are structured around technical departments dedicated to the study, development, optimization and promotion of advanced energy production methods, technological innovation aimed at optimizing sustainability and energy efficiency standards in production and, finally, research into the different impacts on the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere due to energy production and consumption.
Through its Environment Department (DMA)CIEMAT's priority objectives include the development of R&D activities that contribute to improving knowledge of the atmospheric physicochemical processes that influence the chemical composition of the troposphere and its behavior, in order to help develop effective strategies to alleviate the serious problems facing the planet, in general, and our country in particular, related to the loss of ambient air quality and climate change.
The Unit of Characterization and Control of Atmospheric Pollution (UCCCA) of the DMA, on which the ACTRIS Station of Madrid depends, has been developing its research activity for more than 35 years in this field of knowledge. Its main focuses of scientific interest are the experimental investigation of atmospheric constituents, gases and aerosols, the characterization of primary pollutants emitted by different types of anthropic sources (industrial, urban, transport, etc.) and the monitoring of their evolution and effects on the environment through the different atmospheric processes involved in their dispersion, transport and physicochemical transformation. Therefore, the UCCCA is also working on the development of innovative technologies and methodologies that allow the complete and adequate characterization of atmospheric compounds of interest, both for their relevance as pollutant species and for their direct or indirect role in climate alteration. This includes the development of devices, instruments and integrated systems for sampling and measurement, as well as the improvement of sampling, analysis and monitoring techniques, and the evaluation of new techniques for the measurement of atmospheric pollution.
The UCCCA operates and maintains the Observational Platform Madrid-ACTRIS at the CIEMAT campus in Madrid as an atmospheric research station located in a suburban area representative of the processes taking place in the center of the Iberian Peninsula. The development of this station began in 2006 with the integration of the CIEMAT Lidar station in EARLINET (European Network of Advanced Lidar Systems). That milestone was the starting point on which CIEMAT's participation and involvement in what eventually became the European ACTRIS infrastructure was built.
The station currently participates in the segment of vertical profiling of aerosols with Lidar systems, and in the segment of in-situ monitoring of aerosols it has an important set of state-of-the-art instruments for measuring the properties of environmental aerosols (size distribution characteristics, optical properties, on-line chemical speciation, aerosol formation processes and hygroscopicity, ...). Also, as auxiliary information of great value in this station, the environmental concentrations of certain organic and inorganic gases are continuously determined and meteorological variables are monitored, all of vital importance for the understanding of the physico-chemical processes involved in the formation of atmospheric aerosols and trace gases of great relevance in the atmosphere.
Finally, the UCCCA collaborates closely with public administrations in specialized technical support tasks, among which the centralization, management and processing of information related to atmospheric emissions produced by the national park of Large Combustion Plants, an activity carried out through the OCEM-CIEMAT (Office for the Control of Emissions from Spanish Large Combustion Plants), stands out.
Responsible
Manuel Pujadas