Today, the Cape Grim station located at the north-west tip of Tasmania, is celebrating 40 years of continuous operation. Commencing in 1976, and in its current facilities since 1981, the Baseline Air Pollution Station at Cape Grim is Australia’s contribution to international efforts for monitoring the global background atmosphere for trends due to human activities and natural variability.
The Cape Grim station is operated and funded by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, with the Cape Grim Science Program jointly supervised by CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, University of Wollongong and ANSTO.
A plaque will be unveiled during the official ceremony. Presentations on the day include two posters from ANSTO which highlight the history of our atmospheric research at the station, and some of our latest baseline radon data.
It is one of the three premier stations in the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) network of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Cape Grim observations contribute very significantly to the GAW programme, and research results are published in peer-reviewed international journals of the highest quality, are very frequently cited, and feed into the international/global assessments, for example the IPCC.
Cape Grim’s essential purpose has not changed since the program’s inception in 1976. National and global concern that human activity is having an impact on the composition of the global (and regional) atmosphere requires that the changes be observed and understood.
Initially, this was the main focus, whereas now the data are also used for prediction, to guide development of remedial policies, and to verify the effectiveness of global mitigation actions.
The critical role of precise in-situ atmospheric observation programs underpinning our current understanding of atmospheric processes and ability to model future climate, is summarised in a commentary in Nature, entitled “Cinderella science”.
Read more about the Anniversary event
Read about ANSTO's radon research at Cape Grim
Published: 15/11/2016