MDI Mooring - NYSMAC

The Mooring Dirigibile Italia (MDI), operated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council (CNR), has been active in the Kongsfjord of the Svalbard archipelago since September 9, 2010. The mooring line is equipped with various instruments placed at depths ranging from 30 to 90 meters in the water column. These instruments collect a wide range of physical and biogeochemical Essential Ocean Variables, including seawater pressure, temperature, conductivity, currents, dissolved oxygen concentration, PAR, fluorescence, turbidity, particle fluxes, nutrients, and ocean sound. This activity is part of the SIOS (Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System), designed to monitor the impacts of climate change, such as the rapid loss of sea ice cover, the retreat of local glaciers, and the Atlantification of Arctic seas. Time series acquisition is ongoing and will continue, supported by the integration of this infrastructure into the Italian Marine Data Portal, developed under the ITINERIS PNRR project. This project also funds the enhancement of the research infrastructure with new sensors to improve measurement resolution, expand the number of EOVs measured, and support the continuous collection of long-term data. These efforts will further deepen our understanding of the observed environmental changes.