details
- Name
- Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station (Mace Head)
- Address
- Mace Head
- City
- Carna
- State
- Co. Galway
- Country
- Ireland
- Phone
- +353-95-32754
- Fax
- +353-95-32753
- colin.odowd@universityofgalway.ie
- Centre Website
- http://www.macehead.org/
organisation profile
The Research Station is owned by the University of Galway and is managed by the Department of Physics. It has operated since 1958 and, because of its location on the West Coast of Ireland (53 deg N; 10 deg W), is internationally recognised as an appropriate site for the measurement of trends in the global background concentrations of aerosol particles and gases, natural biogeochemical cycles, air-sea exchange processes and the long distance transport and transformation of pollutants from the more highly industrialised development areas of the northern hemisphere. The site was chosen because it is in a remote area at the centre of the Atlantic Coast of Europe in the path of the mid-latitude weather systems which, for about 65 per cent of the time, bring in air masses from the ocean that are not contaminated by local man made pollution. For the rest of the time the air contains traces of man's activities in Ireland and the rest of Europe. Measurements to date show the clear distinction between continental and ocean air.
Current research programmes at the Mace Head station include: Studies of particulate matter in Atlantic air (including the variations with air mass of the concentration, size distribution, volatility and carbon black content of the particles). This research is being performed by the Atmospheric Physics Group of University College Galway with sponsorship from EOLAS - the Irish Science and Technology agency. Studies of the global distribution of the five principal chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases, methane, ozone and nitrous oxide as part of the international Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (GAGE). Ground level ozone concentration measurements as part of EUREKA/EUROTRAC Tropospheric Ozone Research project (TOR) and the US/NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) network. The US Atmospheric/Ocean Chemistry Experiment (AEROCE) on the biogeochemical cycles in the North Atlantic which is part of the North Atlantic Regional Experiment in the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). The investigation of natural sources of sulphur compounds by UCG in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry at Mainz and the Department of the Environment in Dublin.
edmo metadata
- EDMO record id
- 383
- Collating centre
- Marine Institute (MI)
- Latest update
- 4 March 2024 4:11:39 PM