Abstract. The Zeppelin Observatory (78.90∘ N, 11.88∘ E) is located on Zeppelin Mountain at 472 m a.s.l. on
Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago. Established in
1989, the observatory is part of Ny-Ålesund Research Station and
an important atmospheric measurement site, one of only a few in the high
Arctic, and a part of several European and global monitoring programmes and
research infrastructures, notably the European Monitoring and Evaluation
Programme (EMEP); the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP); the
Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW); the Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases
Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS); the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases
Experiment (AGAGE) network; and the Integrated Carbon Observation System
(ICOS). The observatory is jointly operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute
(NPI), Stockholm University, and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research
(NILU). Here we detail the establishment of the Zeppelin Observatory
including historical measurements of atmospheric composition in the European
Arctic leading to its construction. We present a history of the measurements
at the observatory and review the current state of the European Arctic
atmosphere, including results from trends in greenhouse gases,
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), other
traces gases, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals,
aerosols and Arctic haze, and atmospheric transport phenomena, and provide
an outline of future research directions.
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