In December 2020, the installation of instruments that will be used at the North Pole began on the Campo Pericoli plain in Abruzzo by the researchers Vittorio Pasquali and Edoardo Calizza from Sapienza University, and Fabio Leccese and Marco Cagnetti from Roma Tre University.

The instruments have been installed in some Gran Sasso areas, which can be considered the Italian Arctic due to its particular weather and climate conditions.

The prolonged duration of the snow cover at high altitudes, the often strong winds and temperatures that can reach as low as -30°C, make the Gran Sasso similar in climatic terms to the Ny-Alesund settlement on the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Ocean, where Italy has been present for over thirty years with the ‘Dirigibile Italia’ base, managed by the National Research Council. The team of researchers will be installing new monitoring systems here next summer – during the 2021 CNR Arctic campaign – and, in view of this study, the Campo Pericoli plain was deemed suitable for testing the instrumentation.

At the polar base, researchers from various institutes and universities regularly carry out research on atmospheric physics, chemistry and pollution, climate change, hydrogeology, glaciology, oceanography, ecology and psychobiology. In the summer of 2021, microcomputers will be installed, connected to various analogue and digital sensors, which will be used to monitor physical and environmental parameters; the test carried out on the Gran Sasso will make it possible to assess its resistance to low temperatures, first and foremost that of the batteries.

more information: Department of Psychology Sapienza University of Rome