Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station

Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station was established in 1987, and is still in operation.[3] The current station manager is Mr Gerry Spain, who has held this position for the last 20 years.[4] The station PI/Contact is Professor Simon O’Doherty, who runs trace gas measurement at the University of Bristol, and the station CO-PI is Professor Peter Simmonds.[3] Mace Head is funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and NASA.[3]

The station has the dual status of being a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch (GMO) station and a European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) supersite.[2] It is operated by both the National University of Ireland Galway's School of Physics and the University's Ryan Institute Centre for Climate and Air Pollution studies.[2]

The National University of Ireland Galway’s School of Physics has operated at Mace Head for 50 years, and Mace Head Station is one of the most important Global Atmosphere Watch stations in the Northern Hemisphere.[3]

With funding from research projects, it is the NUIG personnel; the students and post-doctoral fellows who are responsible for the operation and maintenance of equipment at Mace Head station.[3] The NUIG provide the costs used for consumables such as filters, as well as the transport of chemical analysis samples to the Glasnevin, Dublin laboratory.[3]

The Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station is located on the West Coast of Ireland in Carna, County Galway.[1] This Northern Hemisphere station has westerly exposure to the North Atlantic Ocean, with coordinates of 53°20’ N and 9°54’ W.[3] This is a clean sector from 180 degrees to 300 degrees, and it is approximately 60% of the air that is measured by the site arrives through this clean sector.[5] It has a time zone of UTC+1 or GMT+1, with 1200mm of annual rainfall, 10 °C average air temperature, and a sea temperature of 10 °C in winter and 15 °C in summer.[3] Peat lands and wetlands surround the station, and its location is approximately 90m from the shoreline.[3]

To reduce pollutants influencing and interfering with measurements taken at the site, Mace Head is strategically located approximately 88km West of Galway city.[3] Similarly, the clean sector surrounding the site also includes three small close surrounding islands, but they are uninhabited and thus do not influence the measurements taken at the site.[3] Furthermore, the main Atlantic shipping routes are over 150km away, and the transatlantic air corridors are over 80km away, thus ensuring cleaner readings.[6]

The location of Mace Head makes it an ideal site for measuring marine biogenic gases, aerosol production and chemistry, and long-range transport of air pollution.[7] It is also ideal for studying the atmosphere under Northern Hemispheric conditions as well as European conditions during eastern winds.[1]

There are numerous facilities on the site used for recording and analysing data. These facilities consist of a 10m meteorological tower, an aluminium walk-up tower and a cargo container laboratory, and three laboratory buildings; one that’s 300m from the shore, and two that are 90m from the shore.[8]

Research and operations began during 1978 to 1983 in Adrigole, County Cork.[3] However, this was shut down and the operations officially moved to the Mace Head site in 1987.[3] It was from 1987 that measurements of chloroform, methane and trichloro trifluoroethane began, and in 1995 carbon monoxide and hydrogen began.[3] In October 1994 the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) network installed their first automated gas chromatography-mass spectrometer.[3] It was later replaced by the Agilent 5973 MS in 1998, and in December 2004 was retired and the Medusa gas chromatography mass spectrometry system (Medusa-GCMS) installed.[3]

The Mace Head station has numerous research aims and themes, such as monitoring climate change, atmospheric composition, aerosol-cloud interactions, air quality, atmosphere-ocean exchange and climate-ecosystem interactions.[9] Their mission statement states that their goal is to monitor trends of atmospheric composition change, monitor climate variables and air pollution, and research atmospheric composition and its impact on climate change.[6] Mace Head also wants to promote education within the topics of climate, air pollution, and the atmosphere.[6]

Mace Head uses a variety of instruments to record their findings. Some of these instruments include a ceilometer and doppler lidar, both used to detect clouds and aerosols, a cloud radar, microwave radiometer and a nano-scanning mobility particle sizer.[2] Mace Head also has a gas chromatography mass spectrometry system (Medusa-GCMS), which was installed in December 2004 and measures trace gas species.[3]

Mace Head also has an automated atomic fluorescence analyzer (AFS) and an automated atomic absorption analyzer (AAS), both used to measure time resolved mercury measurements.[10] There is also a cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS) which is used to measure carbon dioxide and methane.[11] There is also a gas chromatorgraph-electron capture detector (GC-ECD) to measure sulphur hexafluoride and nitrous oxide, and a gas chromatophraph-multi detector (GC-MD) to measure carbon monoxide and hydrogen.[12]

Mace Head is renowned for their atmospheric chemistry research, as they measure numerous meteorological elements such as wind speed and direction, temperature, rainfall, and humidity.[8] They also record and measure greenhouse gases, UV levels, and solar radiation.[7] Mace Head began measuring the ozone since 1988, chloroform, methane and trichloro trifluoroethane in 1897, and carbon monoxide and hydrogen began in 1995.[3]

Mark Lunt measured chlorofluorobarbon (CFC), and Jurgita Ovadnevaite reported on the aerosol-cloud and climate interactions at Mace head, specifically the major advances in sea salt aerosols.[13] Observations of methyl chloroform at Mace Head have also been useful in the understanding of methane removal from the atmosphere, which is caused by trends in atmospheric hydroxyl radical concentrations.[13]

Whilst Mace Head does measure numerous atmospheric compositions, they mainly focuses on the measurements of aerosols and mercury readings, but also observed and measures storms and strong winds.

Mace Head is one of many international research networks, including the Atmospheric/Ocean Chemistry Experiment (AEROCE), the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), the World Meteorological Organization/Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO/GAW), the Budget of Ozone over the Atlantic (BOA), the Tropospheric Ozone Research (TOR, a EUROTRAC project), and the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostic Laboratory/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (CMDL/NOAA).[1]

There are five European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) monitoring stations in Ireland, with Mace Head being the site situated in West Ireland.[24] The remaining four sites are Malin Head Glenveagh in the North, Valentia Observatory in the South, Carnsore Point and Johnstown Castle in the East and Oak Park located inland.[24] Each of these EMEP sites have their chemical analysis undertaken by the Met Eireann at their Dublin Laboratory in Glasnevin.[24]