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The interpretation of firn and ice cores in high-altitude sites in central Asia requires a detailed knowledge of fresh-snow chemistry, especially in the extra-monsoon season. Since 1992 the Water Research Institute of CNR has been involved in sampling and analysis of wet and snow deposition in the Himalayan area. The first campaigns, which were based at the EV-K2-CNR Pyramid site in Khumbu Valley, were focused on the southern side of the Everest group in monsoon season with the aim of evaluating the long-range transport of inorganic pollutants from the Indian subcontinent to the Himalayan range. In the following years, involving climbing expeditions, we extended our research to other regions outside the monsoon season. This approach allowed us to get a better knowledge of spatial and temporal distribution of major ions in snow deposition of the Himalayan region. Furthermore, our results show that nitrate and ammonium concentrations can be biased by post-depositional gas absorption. In fact the interpretation of nitrate values in glaciochemistry is rather difficult because nitrate concentrations in snow are affected by post-exchange with the atmosphere over a broad range of environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Himalayan-Karakoram range is located in one of the most densely populated and very rapidly developing world areas. Monitoring of atmospheric composition in this area can play a relevant role in evaluating the background conditions of the free troposphere and quantifying the pollution present at high altitudes, as well as in studying regional and long-range transport phenomena. Due to technical and logistic difficulties in carrying out measurements at high altitude in the Himalaya, no systematic observations of atmospheric constituents are available for this area. Thus, a new measurement station in such a region represents a unique source of data, able to make up for the prior lack of this information. For these reasons, in the framework of the SHARE-Asia and ABC projects, a remote monitoring station, the ABC-Pyramid Laboratory, will be installed in the Khumbu valley near Mt. Everst at 5079 m a.s.l. Continuous in situ measurements of chemical, physical and optical properties of aerosol, surface ozone concentration, as well as non-continuous measurements of halocarbons and other greenhouse-gas concentrations will be carried out. This monitoring station was projected, realised and tested in Bologna at CNR-ISAC Institute during autumn 2005. It was designed to be controlled by remote login and to operate for the long-term in extremely adverse weather conditions. This station represents an ideal place for studying regional and long-range air mass transport, due to natural and human processes. Precious 5-day forecast information about air-masses circulation at the ABC-Pyramid site will be supplied daily by Lagrangian backward trajectories, including suitable forecasts of stratosphere-troposphere exchange phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pyramid International Laboratory-Observatory is the symbol of the Ev-K2-CNR Project. The project actually began in 1987, when Prof. Ardito Desio, 90 years old at the time, enthusiastically launched a new geological and geodetic research campaign in the Himalayan area. However, it was only with the building of the Pyramid International Laboratory-Observatory, inaugurated by Prof. Desio himself in 1990, that the project acquired a unique ''logistic base'' for its scientific research. The laboratory, located at 5050m a.s.l. in the Khumbu Valley, on the Nepali side of Mount Everest, is in fact the first high-altitude scientific research center of its kind. It is self-sufficient in its energy supply and contains all common scientific instrumentation, making it a suitable place for studying climatic and environmental changes, medicine and human physiology in extreme conditions, geology, geodesy and seismic phenomena. Over time, a wealth of knowledge, initiatives and international relationships have been accumulated and continue to be added to by Ev-K2-CNR through research in the fields of medicine and physiology; environmental sciences, earth sciences, anthropological sciences and clean technologies. The Ev-K2-CNR Committee has been able to play a strategic role in the framework of collaboration amongst institutions, governments and organizations for the exchange and transfer of experiences, technologies and scientific and cultural knowledge. The increasingly interdisciplinary approach to research by the team has also led to the development of integrated programs for promoting the socio-economic development of local populations and environmental safeguarding in the region, such as the international Partnership initiative created through the Italian government around Ev-K2-CNR's expertise, or the regional Ev-K2-CNR Project ''Stations at High Altitude for Research on the Environment in Asia'' (SHARE-Asia), aimed at the establishment of a network of research and monitoring stations for the long-term study of evolutionary environmental processes in the Himalayan-Karakoram region, with a strong technology transfer and capacity-building component to the benefit of local populations and research institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A preface for the January 2007 issue of "Mountains Witnesses of Global Changes" is presented.