Atmospheric composition variability in the framework of I-AMICA Italian Southern Mediterranean infrastructural project

The study and monitoring of absorbing aerosol and greenhouses gas variability due to natural and anthropic emissions capture great attention in the scientific community to study air quality and to investigate different climate scenarios, in particular in the Mediterranean Basin that is an hot spot for climate change. In order to strengthen the environmental observation system in the Southern Italian Convergence Regions I-AMICA (Infrastructure of High Technology for Environmental and Climate Monitoring), a three year Italian National Operative Program (PON) project co-founded by the European Regional Development Fund, is being developed. The project also aim to strengthen the environmental monitoring in the South of Italy adopting both stationary and mobile in-situ stations for aerosols and greenhouses gases and remote sensors, such as Raman lidars and wind lidars for atmospheric profiling. This work is based on the first observations performed at two stations: Lecce, a urban background station in the Apulia region and Lamezia Terme a background station in Calabria region. Differences in concentration levels and in physical properties of aerosol at the two stations will be investigated. Three case studies of long-range transport of natural aerosol creating exceedances of Air Quality Standard (AQS) daily threshold for PM10 will be investigated showing that the simultaneous analysis in the two sites helps in identifying these events and in evaluating their impact on atmospheric aerosol concentrations.