Le Site instrumental de recherche par télédétection (Sirta), infrastructure portée par l’Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, fruit de la collaboration entre le CNRS, l’École polytechnique et la Région Île-de-France, a été inauguré vendredi 17 septembre 2021. Ce site instrumental, dédié à la recherche et à l’enseignement, sera également ouvert au grand public qui pourra y découvrir les sciences du climat et de l’environnement à travers des actions pédagogiques. Ce projet immobilier a reçu le soutien de la Société du Grand Paris, de la Fondation de l’École polytechnique, d’EDF R&D et de l’Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
This atmospheric research observatory is a national experimental site dedicated to climate and environmental research. It is one of the few sites in Europe offering the instrumentation, facilities and hosting capacity required to study atmospheric physico-chemical processes, from the surface to the top of the troposphere, via the boundary layer, to better understand climate feedbacks on regional and decadal scales, evaluate atmospheric models (climate, weather, chemistry-transport) and validate space observations.
With the aim of supporting scientific research in the field of climatology, the new Sirta equipment will enable us to better understand, anticipate and forecast heatwaves and pollution peaks, as well as find innovative solutions for renewable electricity production. They will also reinforce the construction of the European research infrastructure Actris (aerosol, clouds and trace gases research infrastructure), of which Sirta is a major component.
Sirta federates the research and experimental teaching carried out by laboratories in the Paris region in the fields of atmospheric instrumentation and measurement. It is a reference tool at European and international level, and represents a database of several dozen atmospheric variables recorded over almost 20 years.
Fondé en 1999 à l’initiative de l’Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL1), and formerly housed in the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory (LMD2), the Sirta now extends over a 2.5 ha plot of land north of the lake on the École polytechnique campus. The new infrastructure includes a dedicated and emblematic 600 m 2 observatory building with a 450 m² instrumental roof terrace.
This new development has made it possible to protect a natural area of some forty hectares around the observatory, which is essential for the quality and representativeness of the measurements. The new infrastructure provides a permanent home for the observatory's historic instrumentation, and enables the installation of new high-tech measuring instruments (50 m mast, lidar, wind turbines, solar panels, etc.).
Accessible to all, the site will also inform the general public through tours, conferences and debates.
The project was supported by the Société du Grand Paris, EDF R&D, the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) and the Fondation de l'École polytechnique, thanks to the mobilization of alumni from the class of 1977, who organized a special fund-raising campaign to finance the new observatory, and Daniel Rigny (X 1989), Grand Donateur de l'X.
Sirta key figures :
- Création en 1999, plus de 20 ans de recherches et d’ enseignements expérimentaux,
- 150 instruments,
- 18 member laboratories,
- 1,000 interventions per year,
- 750 students per year,
- More than 320 scientific publications since 1999,
- 60 measurement campaigns and instrumental tests,
- 16 TB of data,
- 15 million files,
- 7 million hours of high-quality recorded data,
- 80 data streams and more,
- 600 files per day,
- 18 scientific workshops.
1 Federation of eight Ile-de-France research laboratories (CNRS/École polytechnique/Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)/CEA/Sorbonne Université/IRD/École des ponts ParisTech/Université Paris Saclay).
2 École polytechnique/CNRS/ENS Paris/Sorbonne University.
