Having successfully conducted measurements in the Arctic, CleanCloud researchers will begin their observations of aerosols and clouds from the top of the Mt Helmos in Greece on October 1st. Mt Helmos, rising to a height of 2,355 meters above sea level, is considered ideal for cloud and climate research.
Mt. Helmos sits at the crossroads of many different air masses, and in a “climate hotspot”, which like the Arctic, is changing much faster compared to the global average. This allows particles of almost any kind to interact with clouds, from wildfire smoke to pollution and highly processed particles from continental Europe, to sea salt from the Mediterranean and dust from Sahara, to pollen, bacteria, and fungal spores transported from thousands of kilometres away or the forest below, said Dr. Nenes.
At the mountaintop station (called (HAC)2 ) researchers can directly observe inside clouds and "see” the interactions that are to be described in models, At the same time a whole array of remote sensing instruments can be placed at the base of the mountain – cloud radars, lidars – and remotely observe the clouds. Altogether, the data will improve the understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and serve as a testbed for evaluating existing and new remote sensing algorithms.
There has never been a deployment like this before. The measurements of Mt Helmos will continue to mid-January. For the first part of the mission, among several ground based and remote sensing instruments, we will use drones and balloons, but as they can’t fly under extreme conditions this will not be possible when winter sets in, Dr. Nenes said.
A successful mission was already conducted in 2021, which provided important results that laid the ground for the current campaign – called CHOPIN (Cleancloud Helmos OrograP hic sIte experimeNt).
The researchers expect to be able to directly observe how cloud properties change with the particles in the air and by that contribute to the understanding of future climate impacts.
