Spatiotemporal variability and representativeness of aerosol and clouds over the PANhellenic GEophysical observatory of Antikythera

^(a) Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing, National Observatory of Athens, 15236 Athens, Greece
^(b) Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
^(c) Department of Physics, Section of Environmental Physics-Meteorology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
^(d) Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
^(e) School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, New York, NY 11790, USA
^(f) European Space Agency (ESA/ESRIN), 00044 Frascati, Italy Lead Author e-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 9 April 2026

Abstract

The PANhellenic GEophysical observatory of Antikythera (35.86 Ν, 23.81 Ε, elevation: 110 m a.s.l.), PANGEA, located in the centre of the Eastern Mediterranean basin, at the island of Antikythera is influenced by natural aerosol sources and combinations of all distinct aerosol types, as well as a large variability of cloud systems. The atmospheric homogeneity in terms of aerosols and clouds is presented in the broader area around PANGEA, for a radius up to 100 km away, using the climatological LIVAS and CLOUSAT dataset. The climatological aerosol and cloud statistics over PANGEA are presented. The majority of the detected layers (up to 68%) are attributed to clean continental and marine particles. Additionally, high clouds (high) prevail also during all months at altitudes higher than 6 km, except for July and August. Nimbostratus (Ns), altostratus (As) and deep clouds are observed at all levels up to 13km.