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Atmospheric aerosol particles serving as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) are key elements of the hydrological cycle and climate. The response of cloud characteristics and precipitation processes to increasing anthropogenic aerosol concentrations represents one of the largest uncertainties in the current understanding of climate change. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal distribution of CCN in the atmosphere is essential to understand and describe the effects of aerosols in Earth system models. One of the open questions in this context still is the influence of natural and anthropogenic aerosol on the evolution, the formation and the dynamic of convective clouds.
First results from continuous ambient CCN measurements on the Taunus Observatory on top of Kleiner Feldberg, Germany, will be shown and discussed. |
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