The German research aircraft HALO is currently being prepared for deployment in New Zealand at its home base at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen: During the „HALO-South“ mission, which will begin in September, researchers led by the Leibniz Institute of Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) – among them the team led by Professor Joachim Curtius from Goethe University and a scientists team from KIT – will investigate the interaction of clouds, aerosols, and radiation over the Southern Ocean. To this end, HALO will spend five weeks conducting measurement flights over the oceans of the clean southern hemisphere from Christchurch, New Zealand. The aircraft measurements during ‘HALO-South’ are mainly funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). They mark the start of intensive research cooperation between Germany and New Zealand.
© Tilo Arnhold, TROPOS
The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is one of the cloudiest regions on Earth. Current climate models are based primarily on measurements in the northern hemisphere. Since the southern hemisphere has less land mass, fewer people, and less industry, it is significantly cleaner than the northern hemisphere. Because the atmosphere in the south is cleaner, there are fewer particles on which droplets or ice crystals can form. That is why there is less ice and more liquid water droplets in the clouds there than in the north. However, atmospheric models have so far been mainly aligned to data from the northern hemisphere, which leads to uncertainties in the representation of clouds in the southern hemisphere. This discrepancy has been known for several years, but there is a lack of measurements in the south to adjust the climate models accordingly.
The researchers hope that the measurements will not only provide important data for optimizing weather forecasts and climate models in the little-explored southern hemisphere, but also provide a better fundamental understanding of how the atmosphere and clouds will respond to a decline in anthropogenic emissions in the coming decades. For the team, looking into the cleaner atmosphere around Antarctica is therefore also a glimpse into the future.
The research team led by Professor Joachim Curtius, Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at Goethe University, together with the team led by Dr. Ottmar Möhler and Dr. Pia Bogert from the Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research at KIT, is conducting ice particle measurements using a newly developed ice particle counter called PINE-Air. This instrument is being used for the first time in a measurement aircraft, and the researchers expect that it will enable them to take measurements in the temperature range from minus 35 to minus 60 degrees Celsius, which was not possible before.
Source and further information:
TROPOS, Leipzig
