AerCARE – a new Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Group

October 2009

A meteorologist of the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics was successful in a young scientists contest for funding by the Helmholtz community. She belongs to 20 scientists of HGF institutions who are now able to establish and lead their own research group.

The new young investigators group will systematically investigate and assess the climate effect of elevated aerosol layers arising from natural and anthropogenic sources. This will be achieved in close cooperation with the University of Munich. AerCARE as the new project is named, intends to address the following questions: What are the climate effects of elevated aerosol layers? What fraction of the elevated aerosol layers arise from anthropogenic sources? Does air traffic produce significant layers of black carbon? What are the climate effects of these aerosol layers arising from air traffic? To answer these questions measurements with the new research aircraft HALO will be performed. These results will be combined with data from satellites that are collected by the EarthCARE mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). The comprehensive data set allows to quantify the expected effects on the global climate.