Central Geophysical Observatory at Belsk

The Central Geophysical Observatory at Belsk has begun its regular activity in 1965. The Observatory continues most of the tasks of the observatory at Swider, which had been active since 1920. A strong increase of artificial disturbances, mainly magnetic, produced by electric railroads of Warsaw agglomeration, made it necessary to move the geomagnetic observations from Swider to another place, not very distant from Warsaw, yet much less disturbed.

The Belsk Observatory is located at a distance of about 50 km south of Warsaw and about 2 km from the village Belsk Duzy. The premises of the Observatory, about 10 ha in area, is at the edge of the forest reserve Modrzewina, far away of people's settlements and automobile traffic. The Observatory is surrounded by typically agricultural regions (with fertile soil, mostly apple orchards), so the direct neighborhood is deprived of sources of major artificial geomagnetic field disturbances. It is only the electric railroad (DC powered) situated some 14 km away of the Observatory to the north that produces some small artificial magnetic disturbances, whose average level usually does not exceed 1 nT.

The present activity of the Observatory is focused on physics of the atmosphere, geomagnetism and seismology. Scientificly responsible for these observations are the Departments of Physics of the Atmosphere, Magnetism, and Seismology and Physics of the Earth`s Interior in the Institute of Geophysics.

The Central Geophysical Observatory at Belsk is a member of several international networks and projects e.g.: AERONET , EARLINET , INTERMAGNET , IMAGE , MM100.

More information about the region in which the Observatory is located can be found, in English, Polish and German, on the internet pages of Grójec district http://www.grojec.pl to which the village Belsk Duzy belongs