The SAW Pakt project MarParCloud („Marine biological production, organic aerosol particles and marine clouds: a Process chain“), completed in 2020, aimed to investigate the entire process chain from biological production of organic matter in the oceans to its export into marine aerosol particles and clouds. For this purpose, chemical analysis methods were developed that can detect nitrogenous compounds and marine lipids in all marine matrices. High enrichments with enrichment factors up to 105 of ocean-derived organic matter components in marine aerosol particles, and, for the first time, in marine cloud waters were determined. Overall, the transfer of amino acids, lipids and carbohydrates from the oceans into aerosols and clouds was quantitatively studied and additional atmospheric in situ formation processes were postulated. The results of the MarParCloud project are aggregated in a Special Issue in the Copernicus journals ACP and Ocean Science.

Various measuring stations at the Cape Verde Observatory (CVAO) during the MarParCloud field campaign 2017

In the recently started DFG project ORIGAMY (“ORIGin of Amines within the Marine boundarY layer: A combined field modelling approach”), aliphatic amines are investigated, which are important but little studied organic components in the marine atmosphere. The focus is on monomethyl, dimethyl and trimethyl amines, which dominate in the marine boundary layer. In a combined approach of field measurements and emission modelling, factors that influence the emission of amines from the ocean into the atmosphere as well as their effects on the organic aerosol mass, the aerosol acidity and the formation of new aerosol particles will be determined.