POLARCAT - And the end of the International Polar Year

The first session proposal for the 2010 Oslo Science Conference is already in. Andreas Stohl from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) came out as the winner of the informal race, as he proposed an integrating session on "Short-lived pollutants in the polar regions: Sources, transport, impacts", together with Kathy Law, a colleague in France. Andreas is involved in the IPY project POLARCAT. [more information]

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POLARCAT Data and SPAC II Workshop

The first POLARCAT data workshop bringing together all project participants will be held from 2-5 June, 2009 at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hamsphire.

The workshop is being hosted by the the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space (EOS). Organizing bodies include the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) with sponsorship from the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Program, the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), and the Taskforce on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP) and iLEAPS.

An agenda and travel information can be found here.

Click here for registration and further information.

POLARCAT Campaign Data Workshops

• ARCPAC Data Workshop, March 12-13, Boulder, CO. See here.
• DLR Grace Data Workshop, 4-5 March, 2009; DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Building 120) AGENDA

ARCTAS Mission Science data workshop January 27-30, 2009. Also see here.

ICEALOT Data Workshop, 12 Nov, 2008, Room 2A305; NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory; Boulder, CO, Agenda (PDF) 

See the listing of CAMPAIGN DATA and other resources.

Abstracts at AGU

There was a good showing of POLARCAT presentations at the Fall AGU in San Francisco this year (2008). To browse the submitted abstracts click here.

Summer Campaigns Completed

All field campaigns for the POLARCAT IPY program are finished. We will be posted results here as they become available. In the meantime, stay tuned.

For more information about the campaigns, visit the CAMPAIGNS section..

About the Program

POLARCAT will execute a series of aircraft experiments at different times of the year in order to follow pollution plumes of different origin as they are transported into the Arctic and observe the chemistry, aerosol processes, and radiation effects of these plumes. It will also observe the atmospheric composition in relatively cleaner regions outside major plumes. The experiments will also take advantage of the long residence times of pollutants in the stably stratified Arctic atmosphere to study ageing processes by targeting air masses that have spent considerable time in the Arctic . The Arctic will, thus, also serve as a natural laboratory for investigating processes that cannot be studied elsewhere in such isolation.

This is the POLARCAT portal. This site will be constantly changing throughout the IPY to address the activities associated with the individual campaign. Please bookmark this page and check back frequently for updates.

Contact: jfb at nilu.no if there are questions/comments/concerns.