Atmospheric composition in the European Arctic and 30 years of the Zeppelin Observatory, Ny-Ålesund

• Main Authors: Platt, Stephen M., Hov, Øystein, Berg, Torunn, Breivik, Knut, Eckhardt, Sabine, Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos, Evangeliou, Nikolaos, Fiebig, Markus, Fisher, Rebecca, Hansen, Georg, Hansson, Hans-Christen, Heintzenberg, Jost, Hermansen, Ove, Heslin-Rees, Dominic, Holmén, Kim, Hudson, Stephen, Kallenborn, Roland, Krejci, Radovan, Krognes, Terje, Larssen, Steinar, Lowry, David, Lund Myhre, Cathrine, Lunder, Chris, Nisbet, Euan, Nizetto, Pernilla B., Park, Ki-Tae, Pedersen, Christina A., Aspmo Pfaffhuber, Katrine, Röckmann, Thomas, Schmidbauer, Norbert, Solberg, Sverre, Stohl, Andreas, Ström, Johan, Svendby, Tove, Tunved, Peter, Tørnkvist, Kjersti, Veen, Carina, Vratolis, Stergios, Yoon, Young Jun, Yttri, Karl Espen, Zieger, Paul, Aas, Wenche, Tørseth, Kjetil
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Arctic; Ny-Ålesund; Svalbard; Svalbard Archipelago; AMAP; Norwegian Polar Institute; Ny Ålesund; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-505; https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/acp-2021-505/

The Zeppelin Observatory (78.90° N, 11.88° E) is located on the Zeppelin Mountain at 472 m above sea level on Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago. Established in 1989, the observatory is part of the “Ny-Ålesund Research Station” and an important atmospheric measurement site, one of only a few in the high Arctic and as a part of several European and global monitoring programs and research infrastructures, notably the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP), the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW), the Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace gases Research InfraStructure (ACTRIS), the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) network, and the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS). The observatory is jointly operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Stockholm University and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU). Here we detail the establishment of the Zeppelin Observatory including historical measurements of atmospheric composition in the European Arctic leading to its construction. We present a history of the measurements at the observatory and review the current state of the European Arctic atmosphere, including results from trends in greenhouse gases, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), other traces gases, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals, aerosols and Arctic haze, and atmospheric transport phenomena.