New CRDS (CO, CH4, CO2) observations at three permanent Observatories in the South of Italy in the framework of the I-AMICA Project

The Mediterranean Basin is considered a hot-spot region in term of air-quality and climate change due to the impact of anthropogenic and natural processes, however permanent experimental infrastructures for the observations and the recognition of the atmospheric composition variability changes are still too sparse in this region. To contribute to a more accurate and wide-spread collection of data, in the framework of the Project "I-AMICA" (Advanced Infrastructure for the Environmental-Climatic Monitoring), sponsored by the Italian Ministry for University, Research and Education and by the European Regional Development Founds, three Climatic-Environmental Observatories have been set up in the southern Italy: Lecce (40° 20' 8" N, 18° 07' 28" E, 37 m a.s.l.), Lamezia Terme (38° 52' 34" N, 16° 13' 56" E, 6 m a.s.l.) and Capo Granitola (37° 34' N, 12° 39' E, 5 m a.s.l.). These observatories represent different conditions: from suburban rural conditions at Lecce to costal background conditions at Lamezia Terme and Capo Granitola. Lecce and Lamezia Terme observations can be used for studies of air-mass transport from marine environment and the northern Africa dust as well as for investigation of secondary pollutants formation in the gaseous and aerosol phase. The Capo Granitola is situated at the south coast of Sicily: this station is perfectly located for studies of marine environment, impacts of vessel emissions on regional air quality and for studies of processes of aerosol formation, transformation and transport. These observatories were equipped with homogeneous and standardized experimental set-up for measurements of aerosol properties (number size distribution, absorption and scattering coefficient, mass, equivalent black carbon), reactive gases (O3, NO, NO2, SO2, CO) and greenhouse gases (CO2, CO). In particular, the continuous investigation of CO, CO2 and CH4 variability is based on the use of CRDS systems (Picarro G2401). In this work, we provide a characterization of the three observatories in terms of location, meteorology and transport patterns. We also present and discuss the experimental set-up (sampling systems, calibration strategies, gas standards) used to implement the CO, CO2 and CH4 measurement programmes at each of these stations. Moreover, the first 6 months (January - June 2015) of continuous observations will be presented, thus providing a preliminary assessment of winter-spring variability and background levels at the measurement sites.