Virtual Alpine Observatory (VAO): Fourth Symposium in Grenoble, France

At the symposium DFD scientists presented the latest results of their research and development work in the field of mesosphere dynamics (on gravity waves, infrasound and turbulence). They are based on measurements of atmospheric airglow (at ca. 90 km altitude) made at various VAO locations where ground-based infrared spectrometers and imagers are installed. Results were also presented on the possible influence of the solar magnetic field on the activity of large-scale planetary waves in the atmosphere and how this might relate to extreme weather events. There were other contributions on modelling air quality in Bavaria and Slovenia and on estimating environmentally-related health risks. Work was also presented on determining the extent of snow cover in the Alpine region and on task-sharing relating to further expansion of the Alpine Environmental Data Analysis Center, AlpEnDAC, together with colleagues from the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, LRZ; bifa GmbH and UFS GmbH.

The Virtual Alpine Observatory (VAO) was launched on 19 April 2012 as a network of European high altitude research stations in the Alps and similar alpine mountain ranges. VAO now has participants from nine countries (the Alpine region countries Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia, as well as associated partners from Norway, Georgia and the Czech Republic). The system comprising the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and cryosphere and the subject of potential environmentally-related health effects contain science challenges that can be addressed by this alliance to a depth that would not be possible without such international and interdisciplinary cooperation.

First and foremost, the VAO community focuses on the scientific investigation of ten urgent and complex issues (so-called “challenges”) relating to

• Atmosphere and climate variability
• Climate impact on alpine environments, hazards, and risks
• The alpine hydrological cycle
• Environment and health.

The challenges are specified in a VAO strategy paper introduced on 14 June 2017 in Brussels; it can be accessed from the VAO website.

One feature of the formulated research goals is that addressing the “challenges” frequently calls not only for international cooperation, but especially for an allocation of effort among various science disciplines (for example, when investigating the impact of the environment on people’s well-being). Each research community makes available its own measurements (and in some cases also instruments) for its share of the work. As a matter of course, data can be used that is already available from other sources (for example, satellite-based and aerial measurements) or collected by thematically-specialized affiliations with a monitoring infrastructure (such as GAW-DACH, NDMC, NDACC, ACTRIS, LTER, TERENO, etc.). The VAO community carries out its own measurement campaigns whenever the required data is unavailable or of inadequate quality.