The Russian boreal zone/Arctic is an interesting region both in winter and in summer. In winter, pollution enters the Arctic lower troposphere primarily in western and central Russia. In summer, Siberia is the region where most of the boreal forest fires occur – for instance, 21 million hectare burned in 2003. There is a lack of measurement data from this vast region. POLARCAT shall improve this situation both by analyzing existing data, and by making new measurements during IPY. Using the FLEXPART transport calculations in a collaborative work between OIAP and NILU, we will analyze measurement data from Lovozero (68ºN, 35ºE), Kislovodsk (44ºN, 43ºE), Zotino (61ºN, 89ºE), and existing data from the TROICA experiments along the Transsiberian Railroad (Elansky et al., 2001; Oberlander et al., 2002). For all these stations/platforms, relatively comprehensive gas phase/aerosol data sets exist. Furthermore, one more experiment with the TROICA carriage shall be made, likely in summer 2008 to characterize the situation during a time of the year when boreal forest fires are frequent. Alternatively, early spring 2008 during the Arctic Haze season is also an option.

As a collaboration between IAO and a French group led by P. Ciais (involving also K. Law, cocoordinator of POLARCAT), an Antonov-30 aircraft is currently being equipped with modern insitu chemical, aerosol, and remote sensing instrumentation (see attachment). The first few flights were recently completed. The data from these flights will be shared with NILU. Furthermore, as part of this proposal, one more long flight (likely to Yakutsk) shall be made. This flight will target a forest fire plume traveling towards the Arctic. The French partners will make their instrumentation available to IAO for this flight. The flight will be coordinated with the TROICA campaign and with other aircraft missions, especially the NASA campaign.

The Russian partners are now also seeking support from Russian funding agencies to extend their POLARCAT contribution beyond that described here. Furthermore, K. Law, co-coordinator of POLARCAT, has received French funding for Antonov-30 flights.