Messkampagne August 2012 - Taunusobservatorium (Kleiner Feldberg)

The first field measurement campaign of INUIT research group was conducted in August 2012 on the Taunus Observatory of the Goethe University Frankfurt. The Taunus Observatory is located on the mountain "Kleiner Feldberg" at 825 m above sea level.

The main goal of this test campaign was the first field deployment of the coupling between the ice nucleus (IN) counter FINCH (INUIT RP1) and the aerosol mass spectrometer ALABAMA (INUIT RP2) via the newly developed IN-CVI (INUIT RP2), as well as of the new bio-aerosol detector in FINCH. For this experiment, the test campaign provided valuable experience with regard to various technical problems that could be incorporated into the preparation of the following projects ACRIDICON Zugspitze and INUIT Jungfraujoch.

Additionally, aerosol samples were taken and analyzed offline for IN concentrations (FRIDGE, U Frankfurt, INUIT RP8) and their chemical composition (ESEM, TU Darmstadt, INUIT RP8).

The ability of the aerosol particles to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) was measured, and a high volume sampler was used with the objective to analyze the DNA of biological aerosol particles (INUIT RP9).

A further contribution of the INUIT group was the use of an "unmanned aerial vehicle" (UAV), on which a particle sampler and an optical particle counter were flown starting from the "grosser Feldberg", thus providing information on the vertical distribution of IN (INUIT RP7 and RP8).