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Abstract
At the Istituto di Metodologie per l’Analisi Ambientale of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-IMAA) an advanced observatory for the ground-based remote sensing of the atmosphere is operative. This facility is equipped several instruments including two multi-wavelength Raman lidars, one of which mobile, a microwave profiler, a 36 GHz cloud radar, two laser ceilometers, a sun-photometer, a GPS receiver, a surface radiation station and three radiosounding stations.
The CNR-IMAA observatory is located in Southern Italy on the Apennine mountains (40.60N, 15.72E, 760 m a.s.l.), less than 150 km from the West, South and East coasts. The site is in a valley surrounded by low mountains (<1100 m a.s.l.) and this location offers an optimal opportunity to study different kinds of weather and climate regimes. It represents an optimal site where testing possible synergies between active and passive techniques for improving the profiling capabilities of atmospheric key variables, such as aerosol, water vapour and clouds, and for the development of an integration strategy for the long-term monitoring.
Moreover, in 2008 the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) invited the CNR-IMAA advanced observatory in becoming one of the 12 stations backbone of GRUAN (GCOS upper-air network reference network).
In the present work, several examples of the integrated measurements performed at the facility for the characterization of aerosol and clouds properties will be presented. Moreover, examples of the techniques developed and implemented at the observatory for the improvement of the atmospheric profiling combining active and passive instruments will be shown.