The Optical Instrumentation group of the Department of Physics at the University of Milan, led by Marco Potenza, conducted two experiments on opposite sides of the world to create new ways for investigating climate change. In Svalbard, as part of an activity that recently resulted in the project "SPARK: Snow Physical Properties and Assessment of Radiative Transfer in the Snowpack", the team developed an instrument to measure how solar radiation interacts with the cryosphere, which is critical for predicting our planet's climate evolution and identifying avalanche risk. The University of Milan's Optical Instrumentation group is also working on another project, this time in Antarctica: in recent years, researchers have developed a new instrument to monitor atmospheric aerosols and shed light on their climate effects.