31.3.2016 - Setup continues

Today we had another long day, but made very good progress: We installed three more inlets (two PM10 and one TSP (total supended particles)).

Inside the container we connected most of the instruments to the inlets, and we already started the data acqusition with some of the instruments. This is important, because for tomorrow some models forecast a dust event (others don't, though). So we will see which ones were right.

30.3.2016 - First day at the field site

Today we first went to the Cyprus Institute to meet the colleagues from there. They support our field campaign in many ways (logistics, infrastructure, science) and the run the field station where we will put up our instruments. They even bought a new measurement container for us! Also, we shipped all our equipment to the institute and were eager to see if everything has arrived. And it had!
So after a first introduction meeting we loaded all the equipment on a truck and went to the field site, where we unloaded the truck and started with the setup. Although we had a long day, we are far from finished. But at least (among other stuff) we managed to setup one inlet line, the PM1 inlet (for particles smaller than 1 µm):

29.3.2016 - Travel day

Most of our team arrived today at Cyprus. Although there was some trouble at Larnaca airport due to a hijacked aicraft, everyone arrived, just a little later than expected. We stay at a very nice hotel in Nikosia.

Welcome

Welcome to the INUIT-BACCHUS-ACTRIS field project!
This blog is about a scientific project conducted in April 2016 on Cyprus.

We are an international team of researchers (funded by DFG, EU and other sources) investigating the ice forming properties of atmospheric aerosol particles. Ice formation in clouds is an important issue in the formation of rain, but also alters the radiative properties of clouds. Why Cyprus? Because there we expect to find lots of mineral dust (e.g. from the Sahara) in the air, and mineral dust particles are know to be good ice nucleation particles.
Me (Johannes Schneider from Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany), I am responsible for the organisation of the DFG-funded (INUIT = Ice Nucleation Research Unit) part of the project. I will try to keep this blog updated in the next weeks.