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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    CAMP: An instrumented platform for balloon-borne aerosol particle studies in the lower atmosphere
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2022) Pilz, Christian; Düsing, Sebastian; Wehner, Birgit; Müller, Thomas; Siebert, Holger; Voigtländer, Jens; Lonardi, Michael
    Airborne observations of vertical aerosol particle distributions are crucial for detailed process studies and model improvements. Tethered balloon systems represent a less expensive alternative to aircraft to probe shallow atmospheric boundary layers (ABLs). This study presents the newly developed cubic aerosol measurement platform (CAMP) for balloon-borne observations of aerosol particle microphysical properties. With an edge length of 35 cm and a weight of 9 kg, the cube is an environmentally robust instrument platform intended for measurements at low temperatures, with a particular focus on applications in cloudy Arctic ABLs. The aerosol instrumentation on board CAMP comprises two condensation particle counters with different lower detection limits, one optical particle size spectrometer, and a miniaturized absorption photometer. Comprehensive calibrations and characterizations of the instruments were performed in laboratory experiments. The first field study with a tethered balloon system took place at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) station in Melpitz, Germany, in the winter of 2019. At ambient temperatures between-8 and 15 C, the platform was operated up to a 1.5 km height on 14 flights under both clear-sky and cloudy conditions. The continuous aerosol observations at the ground station served as a reference for evaluating the CAMP measurements. Exemplary profiles are discussed to elucidate the performance of the system and possible process studies. Based on the laboratory instrument characterizations and the observations during the field campaign, CAMP demonstrated the capability to provide comprehensive aerosol particle measurements in cold and cloudy ABLs.
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    Characterization and first results from LACIS-T : a moist-air wind tunnel to study aerosol–cloud–turbulence interactions
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2020) Niedermeier, Dennis; Voigtländer, Jens; Schmalfuß, Silvio; Busch, Daniel; Schumacher, Jörg; Shaw, Raymond A.; Stratmann, Frank
    The interactions between turbulence and cloud microphysical processes have been investigated primarily through numerical simulation and field measurements over the last 10 years. However, only in the laboratory we can be confident in our knowledge of initial and boundary conditions and are able to measure under statistically stationary and repeatable conditions. In the scope of this paper, we present a unique turbulent moist-air wind tunnel, called the Turbulent Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator (LACIS-T) which has been developed at TROPOS in order to study cloud physical processes in general and interactions between turbulence and cloud microphysical processes in particular. The investigations take place under well-defined and reproducible turbulent and thermodynamic conditions covering the temperature range of warm, mixed-phase and cold clouds (25∘C>T>−40∘C ). The continuous-flow design of the facility allows for the investigation of processes occurring on small temporal (up to a few seconds) and spatial scales (micrometer to meter scale) and with a Lagrangian perspective. The here-presented experimental studies using LACIS-T are accompanied and complemented by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations which help us to design experiments as well as to interpret experimental results. In this paper, we will present the fundamental operating principle of LACIS-T, the numerical model, and results concerning the thermodynamic and flow conditions prevailing inside the wind tunnel, combining both characterization measurements and numerical simulations. Finally, the first results are depicted from deliquescence and hygroscopic growth as well as droplet activation and growth experiments. We observe clear indications of the effect of turbulence on the investigated microphysical processes.
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    The SPectrometer for Ice Nuclei (SPIN): An instrument to investigate ice nucleation
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) Garimella, Sarvesh; Kristensen, Thomas Bjerring; Ignatius, Karolina; Welti, Andre; Voigtländer, Jens; Kulkarni, Gourihar R.; Sagan, Frank; Kok, Gregory Lee; Dorsey, James; Nichman, Leonid; Rothenberg, Daniel Alexander; Rösch, Michael; Kirchgäßner, Amélie Catharina Ruth; Ladkin, Russell; Wex, Heike; Wilson, Theodore W.; Ladino, Luis Antonio; Abbatt, Jon P.D.; Stetzer, Olaf; Lohmann, Ulrike; Stratmann, Frank; Cziczo, Daniel James
    The SPectrometer for Ice Nuclei (SPIN) is a commercially available ice nucleating particle (INP) counter manufactured by Droplet Measurement Technologies in Boulder, CO. The SPIN is a continuous flow diffusion chamber with parallel plate geometry based on the Zurich Ice Nucleation Chamber and the Portable Ice Nucleation Chamber. This study presents a standard description for using the SPIN instrument and also highlights methods to analyze measurements in more advanced ways. It characterizes and describes the behavior of the SPIN chamber, reports data from laboratory measurements, and quantifies uncertainties associated with the measurements. Experiments with ammonium sulfate are used to investigate homogeneous freezing of deliquesced haze droplets and droplet breakthrough. Experiments with kaolinite, NX illite, and silver iodide are used to investigate heterogeneous ice nucleation. SPIN nucleation results are compared to those from the literature. A machine learning approach for analyzing depolarization data from the SPIN optical particle counter is also presented (as an advanced use). Overall, we report that the SPIN is able to reproduce previous INP counter measurements.
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    Understanding aerosol microphysical properties from 10 years of data collected at Cabo Verde based on an unsupervised machine learning classification
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2022) Gong, Xianda; Wex, Heike; Müller, Thomas; Henning, Silvia; Voigtländer, Jens; Wiedensohler, Alfred; Stratmann, Frank
    The Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO), which is influenced by both marine and desert dust air masses, has been used for long-term measurements of different properties of the atmospheric aerosol from 2008 to 2017. These properties include particle number size distributions (PNSD), light-absorbing carbon (LAC) and concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) together with their hygroscopicity. Here we summarize the results obtained for these properties and use an unsupervised machine learning algorithm for the classification of aerosol types. Five types of aerosols, i.e., marine, freshly formed, mixture, moderate dust and heavy dust, were classified. Air masses during marine periods are from the Atlantic Ocean and during dust periods are from the Sahara Desert. Heavy dust was more frequently present during wintertime, whereas the clean marine periods were more frequently present during springtime. It was observed that during the dust periods CCN number concentrations at a supersaturation of 0.30g% were roughly 2.5 times higher than during marine periods, but the hygroscopicity (κ) of particles in the size range from g1/4g30 to g1/4g175gnm during marine and dust periods were comparable. The long-term data presented here, together with the aerosol classification, can be used as a basis to improve our understanding of annual cycles of the atmospheric aerosol in the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean and on aerosol-cloud interactions and it can be used as a basis for driving, evaluating and constraining atmospheric model simulations.
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    Characterization of aerosol particles at Cabo Verde close to sea level and at the cloud level – Part 1: Particle number size distribution, cloud condensation nuclei and their origins
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Gong, Xianda; Wex, Heike; Voigtländer, Jens; Fomba, Khanneh Wadinga; Weinhold, Kay; van Pinxteren, Manuela; Henning, Silvia; Müller, Thomas; Herrmann, Hartmut; Stratmann, Frank
    In the framework of the MarParCloud (Marine biological production, organic aerosol particles and marine clouds: a Process Chain) project, measurements were carried out on the islands of Cabo Verde (a.k.a. Cape Verde) to investigate the abundance, properties and sources of aerosol particles in general, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in particular, both close to sea level and at the cloud level. A thorough comparison of particle number concentration (PNC), particle number size distribution (PNSD) and CCN number concentration (NCCN) at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO, sea-level station) and Monte Verde (MV, cloud-level station) reveals that during times without clouds the aerosols at CVAO and MV are similar and the boundary layer is generally well mixed. Therefore, data obtained at CVAO can be used to describe the aerosol particles at cloud level. Cloud events were observed at MV during roughly 58 % of the time, and during these events a large fraction of particles was activated to cloud droplets. A trimodal parameterization method was deployed to characterize PNC at CVAO. Based on number concentrations in different aerosol modes, four well-separable types of PNSDs were found, which were named the marine type, mixture type, dust type1 and dust type2. Aerosol particles differ depending on their origins. When the air masses came from the Atlantic Ocean, sea spray can be assumed to be one source for particles besides new particle formation. For these air masses, PNSDs featured the lowest number concentration in Aitken, accumulation and coarse modes. Particle number concentrations for sea spray aerosol (SSA, i.e., the coarse mode for these air masses) accounted for about 3.7 % of NCCN,0.30 % (CCN number concentration at 0.30 % supersaturation) and about 1.1 % to 4.4 % of Ntotal (total particle number concentration). When the air masses came from the Sahara, we observed enhanced Aitken, accumulation and coarse mode particle number concentrations and overall increased NCCN; NCCN,0.30 % during the strongest observed dust periods is about 2.5 times higher than that during marine periods. However, the particle hygroscopicity parameter κ for these two most different periods shows no significant difference and is generally similar, independent of air mass. Overall, κ averaged 0.28, suggesting the presence of organic material in particles. This is consistent with previous model work and field measurements. There is a slight increase in κ with increasing particle size, indicating the addition of soluble, likely inorganic, material during cloud processing.
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    An optical particle size spectrometer for aircraft-borne measurements in IAGOS-CARIBIC
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) Hermann, Markus; Weigelt, Andreas; Assmann, Denise; Pfeifer, Sascha; Müller, Thomas; Conrath, Thomas; Voigtländer, Jens; Heintzenberg, Jost; Wiedensohler, Alfred; Martinsson, Bengt G.; Deshler, Terry; Brenninkmeijer, Carl A.M.; Zahn, Andreas
    The particle number size distribution is an important parameter to characterize the atmospheric aerosol and its influence on the Earth's climate. Here we describe a new optical particle size spectrometer (OPSS) for measurements of the accumulation mode particle number size distribution in the tropopause region on board a passenger aircraft (IAGOS-CARIBIC observatory: In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System – Civil Aircraft for Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container). A modified KS93 particle sensor from RION Co., Ltd., together with a new airflow system and a dedicated data acquisition system, is the key component of the CARIBIC OPSS. The instrument records individual particle pulse signal curves in the particle size range 130–1110 nm diameter (for a particle refractive index of 1.47-i0.006) together with a time stamp and thus allows the post-flight choice of the time resolution and the size distribution bin width. The CARIBIC OPSS has a 50 % particle detection diameter of 152 nm and a maximum asymptotic counting efficiency of 98 %. The instrument's measurement performance shows no pressure dependency and no particle coincidence for free tropospheric conditions. The size response function of the CARIBIC OPSS was obtained by a polystyrene latex calibration in combination with model calculations. Particle number size distributions measured with the new OPSS in the lowermost stratosphere agreed within a factor of 2 in concentration with balloon-borne measurements over western North America. Since June 2010 the CARIBIC OPSS is deployed once per month in the IAGOS-CARIBIC observatory.
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    Surface roughness during depositional growth and sublimation of ice crystals
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2018) Voigtländer, Jens; Chou, Cedric; Bieligk, Henner; Clauss, Tina; Hartmann, Susan; Herenz, Paul; Niedermeier, Dennis; Ritter, Georg; Stratmann, Frank; Ulanowski, Zbigniew
    Ice surface properties can modify the scattering properties of atmospheric ice crystals and therefore affect the radiative properties of mixed-phase and cirrus clouds. The Ice Roughness Investigation System (IRIS) is a new laboratory setup designed to investigate the conditions under which roughness develops on single ice crystals, based on their size, morphology and growth conditions (relative humidity and temperature). Ice roughness is quantified through the analysis of speckle in 2-D light-scattering patterns. Characterization of the setup shows that a supersaturation of 20 % with respect to ice and a temperature at the sample position as low as-40 °C could be achieved within IRIS. Investigations of the influence of humidity show that higher supersaturations with respect to ice lead to enhanced roughness and irregularities of ice crystal surfaces. Moreover, relative humidity oscillations lead to gradual ratcheting-up of roughness and irregularities, as the crystals undergo repeated growth-sublimation cycles. This memory effect also appears to result in reduced growth rates in later cycles. Thus, growth history, as well as supersaturation and temperature, influences ice crystal growth and properties, and future atmospheric models may benefit from its inclusion in the cloud evolution process and allow more accurate representation of not just roughness but crystal size too, and possibly also electrification properties.
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    Marine organic matter in the remote environment of the Cape Verde islands-an introduction and overview to the MarParCloud campaign
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) van Pinxteren, Manuela; Fomba, KhannehWadinga; Triesch, Nadja; Stolle, Christian; Wurl, Oliver; Bahlmann, Enno; Gong, Xianda; Voigtländer, Jens; Wex, Heike; Robinson, Tiera-Brandy; Barthel, Stefan; Zeppenfeld, Sebastian; Hoffmann, Erik Hans; Roveretto, Marie; Li, Chunlin; Grosselin, Benoit; Daële, Veronique; Senf, Fabian; van Pinxteren, Dominik; Manzi, Malena; Zabalegui, Nicolás; Frka, Sanja; Gašparović, Blaženka; Pereira, Ryan; Li, Tao; Wen, Liang; Li, Jiarong; Zhu, Chao; Chen, Hui; Chen, Jianmin; Fiedler, Björn; von Tümpling, Wolf; Read, Katie Alana; Punjabi, Shalini; Lewis, Alastair Charles; Hopkins, James Roland; Carpenter, Lucy Jane; Peeken, Ilka; Rixen, Tim; Schulz-Bull, Detlef; Mong, María Eugenia; Mellouki, Abdelwahid; George, Christian; Stratmann, Frank; Herrmann, Hartmut
    The project MarParCloud (Marine biological production, organic aerosol Particles and marine Clouds: a process chain) aims to improve our understanding of the genesis, modification and impact of marine organic matter (OM) from its biological production, to its export to marine aerosol particles and, finally, to its ability to act as ice-nucleating particles (INPs) and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). A field campaign at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO) in the tropics in September-October 2017 formed the core of this project that was jointly performed with the project MARSU (MARine atmospheric Science Unravelled). A suite of chemical, physical, biological and meteorological techniques was applied, and comprehensive measurements of bulk water, the sea surface microlayer (SML), cloud water and ambient aerosol particles collected at a ground-based and a mountain station took place. Key variables comprised the chemical characterization of the atmospherically relevant OM components in the ocean and the atmosphere as well as measurements of INPs and CCN. Moreover, bacterial cell counts, mercury species and trace gases were analyzed. To interpret the results, the measurements were accompanied by various auxiliary parameters such as air mass back-trajectory analysis, vertical atmospheric profile analysis, cloud observations and pigment measurements in seawater. Additional modeling studies supported the experimental analysis. During the campaign, the CVAO exhibited marine air masses with low and partly moderate dust influences. The marine boundary layer was well mixed as indicated by an almost uniform particle number size distribution within the boundary layer. Lipid biomarkers were present in the aerosol particles in typical concentrations of marine background conditions. Accumulation-and coarse-mode particles served as CCN and were efficiently transferred to the cloud water. The ascent of ocean-derived compounds, such as sea salt and sugar-like compounds, to the cloud level, as derived from chemical analysis and atmospheric transfer modeling results, denotes an influence of marine emissions on cloud formation. Organic nitrogen compounds (free amino acids) were enriched by several orders of magnitude in submicron aerosol particles and in cloud water compared to seawater. However, INP measurements also indicated a significant contribution of other non-marine sources to the local INP concentration, as (biologically active) INPs were mainly present in supermicron aerosol particles that are not suggested to undergo strong enrichment during ocean-atmosphere transfer. In addition, the number of CCN at the supersaturation of 0.30 % was about 2.5 times higher during dust periods compared to marine periods. Lipids, sugar-like compounds, UV-absorbing (UV: ultraviolet) humic-like substances and low-molecularweight neutral components were important organic compounds in the seawater, and highly surface-active lipids were enriched within the SML. The selective enrichment of specific organic compounds in the SML needs to be studied in further detail and implemented in an OM source function for emission modeling to better understand transfer patterns, the mechanisms of marine OM transformation in the atmosphere and the role of additional sources. In summary, when looking at particulate mass, we see oceanic compounds transferred to the atmospheric aerosol and to the cloud level, while from a perspective of particle number concentrations, sea spray aerosol (i.e., primary marine aerosol) contributions to both CCN and INPs are rather limited. © Author(s) 2020.
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    Knowledge Transfer with Citizen Science: Luft-Leipzig Case Study
    (Basel : MDPI, 2021) Tõnisson, Liina; Voigtländer, Jens; Weger, Michael; Assmann, Denise; Käthner, Ralf; Heinold, Bernd; Macke, Andreas
    Community-based participatory research initiatives such as “hackAir”, “luftdaten.info”, “senseBox”, “CAPTOR”, “CurieuzeNeuzen Vlaanderen”, “communityAQ”, and “Healthy Air, Healthier Children” campaign among many others for mitigating short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) and improving air quality have reported progressive knowledge transfer results. These research initiatives provide the research community with the practical four-element state-of-the-art method for citizen science. For the preparation-, measurements-, data analysis-, and scientific support-elements that collectively present the novel knowledge transfer method, the Luft-Leipzig project results are presented. This research contributes to science by formulating a novel method for SLCP mitigation projects that employ citizen scientists. The Luft-Leipzig project results are presented to validate the four-element state-of-the-art method. The method is recommended for knowledge transfer purposes beyond the scope of mitigating short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) and improving air quality.