The chemistry and transport aspects of the Swiss-British
Collaboration on the Jungfraujoch Studies are
a contribution to TOR-2 in EUROTRAC-2
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS
Dr Evi Schuepbach, CABO, Physical Geography, University
of Berne, Switzerland
Prof. Stuart A. Penkett, School of Environmental
Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.
Dr Paul S. Monks, School of Chemistry, University
of Leicester, Leicester, U.K.
Pierre Jeannet, Swiss Meteorological Institute, Payerne,
Switzerland
Pictures
 
Dr. Evi Schuepbach and Dr. Paul S. Monks, Jungfraujoch
Observatory, spring 1996.
More Pictures from FREETEX'96
/ FREETEX'98
Description of the 'Jungfraujoch
Studies'
The international research site at Jungfraujoch in
the Swiss Alps (46° 32'53'' N / 07° 59'02'' E / research station:
3,450 m asl / Sphinx Observatory: 3,580 m asl) is located - most of the
year - in the lower free troposphere over Continental Europe (Schuepbach
et al., 1998a). It is thus an ideal laboratory for the experimental
verification of the photochemical theory on the spring ozone maximum in
the mid-latitudes (see Penkett and Price,
1986).
Until so far, experimental verification of this hypothesis
has been lacking, partly due to the absence of instrumentation to determine
all the necessary quantities. The lower free troposphere is a less complicated
environment in terms of chemical composition - compared with the Atmospheric
Boundary Layer. The study of the tropospheric chemistry in this relatively
`clean' and chemically undisturbed environment is thus one of the major
aims of the Swiss-British Collaboration on the
Jungfraujoch Studies.
The chemistry aspects carried out at Jungfraujoch
focus on the study of the underlying chemical processes governing the ozone
budget in spring. Much can also be learnt from the study of peroxy radicals,
since they play a crucial role in the ozone chemistry in the troposphere;
in the presence of enough NOx, the peroxy radicals oxidise NO to NO2 and
lead to ozone production. In the absence of NOx, peroxy radicals react
with ozone and lead to ozone destruction. Another focus was
on an initial experiment on the measurement of peroxy radicals at Jungfraujoch
in spring 1996 (FREETEX
'96 = FREE Tropospheric EXperiment 1996) with subsequent preliminary
modelling of the inlet chemistry (Schuepbach
et al., 1996; Zanis et al., 1999b.).
The first year of the study (1995-96) was funded
by the Swiss Department of the Environment (BUWAL - Bundesamt fuer Umwelt,
Wald und Landschaft). The emphasis in the first year was on the examination
of the data quality of the long-term ozone (1986-) record at Jungfraujoch,
and on a chemical climatology of ozone (Schuepbach
et al., 1998a, Schuepbach et al., 1998b,
Zanis et al., 1999a).
In 1996, the chemistry and transport aspects of the
Jungfraujoch Studies were nested into the Tropospheric Ozone Research (TOR-2)
Programme in EUROTRAC-2.
A second field-experiment was conducted successfully at Jungfraujoch in
spring 1998 (FREETEX
'98 = FREE Tropospheric EXperiment 1998), with the measurement of all
major components involved in the in-situ photochemical production of ozone
in the lower free troposphere.
In addition, a Special ECMWF
Project was set up to study the long-range transport to the Jungfraujoch
during FREETEX '96 and FREETEX '98 (Maass
and Schuepbach, 1997). A collaborative project was also established
with the Swiss Meteorological Institute (SMI) at Payerne for the study
of the mesoscale transport to the Jungfraujoch with the help of the operational
numerical weather forecasting model (`Swiss Model'), see Schuepbach
et al., 1998.
Links
last update 30/11/00
evi@giub.unibe.ch
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