Markus Fiebig, Senior scientist, Head of the In Situ node of the ACTRIS Data Centre, NILU

Dr. Markus Fiebig received his PhD in 2001 from the University of Munich on the topic of climate forcing of atmospheric aerosol in the mid-latitude troposphere. He spent his post-doc years continuing in the same field at the German Aerospace Centre’s branch in Oberpfaffenhofen, observing atmospheric aerosol properties using research aircraft, but also at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Research Labs in Boulder, Colorado, on aerosol observations at surface in situ sites.

In 2007, he moved to NILU, then called Norwegian Institute for Air Research, located close to Oslo. While continuing the work on the atmospheric aerosol climate effect, now using NILU’s observatories in Southern Norway, high Arctic (Svalbard), and Antarctica, he gradually moved into data management and e-infrastructures for atmospheric composition and properties. NILU operates one of the largest data archives on atmospheric observations measured at surface in situ stations. For example as World Data Centres for Aerosol and Reactive Gases for the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), this archive serves as connection between many observation networks and the community predicting Earth’s climate.

Currently, the same data infrastructure hosts the In Situ node of the ACTRIS Data Centre (DC). Dr. Fiebig has been involved in constructing the ACTRIS Research Infrastructure ever since it started in the project phase. More recently, the work focussed on implementing data FAIRness for the ENVRI atmospheric domain, including the ACTRIS Data Centre. The work is embedded in EU projects such as ENVRI-FAIR (ended), ENVRI-hub NEXT and CARGO-ACT (both ongoing). Currently, the ACTRIS Data Centre offers more than 1000 variables from 700 sites. Dr. Fiebig has been widely involved in all parts of FAIRness implementation and led the work on semantic interoperability, feeding into the new ACTRIS Data Portal, which serves the whole variety of ACTRIS data in a single place, and also serves as demonstrator for domain interoperability.