Sonnblick Observatory - Austria

The Sonnblick Observatory is located in the Austrian Central Alps at an elevation of 3100 m a.s.l. It is situated at the alpine main divide, which is a clear climatological border. It also lies in the “Nationalpark Hohe Tauern” which covers 1856 km2 of the Austrian Alps. Research of the Sonnblick Observatory is currently formulated in the research programme ENVISON. It covers three main topics (the atmosphere, the cryosphere, and the biosphere) in an extensive monitoring programme and with many research projects.The Sonnblick Observatory is outstanding with respect to its long-term climate observations and studies on glacier changes. Thus, the impact of Climate Change on the cryosphere is a major research topic at the Sonnblick Observatory. Since 1886, the observatory is also involved in many international projects on atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics. The research is described on www.sonnblick.net. The Sonnblick Observatory cooperates with several Austrian and international universities/research institutions. Within the frame of the GAW-DACH cooperation, Sonnblick has a special partnership with the observatories Jungfraujoch (in Switzerland), Zugspitze and Hohenpeissenberg (both Germany) for common research on atmospheric processes and Climate Change. The Sonnblick observatory ist part of the BSRN-Network, LTER Austria, ACTRIS, etc. Data are available via the SBO Data Portal. In the frame of eLTER the SBO will be part of the eLTSER Cluster NPHT.