Aerosol from ground to Cloud Mobile Experiment - ACME

Overview

The ACTRIS National Facility (ACTRIS NF) ACME is a mobile research facility for comprehensive, state-of-the-art ground-based aerosol characterization in combination with vertical in-situ measurements of selected physical aerosol, cloud and meteorological properties up to an altitude of 1.5 km. A key feature of ACME is its modular design, which enables highly flexible, worldwide deployment - also on research vessels - under different climatic conditions from the tropics to the polar regions, . All ground-based instruments and the necessary (data) infrastructure are integrated in a laboratory container, which can be supplemented with a second storage container and a tent-like hangar for a small tethered balloon or similar if required. The use of a tent for parts of the mobile system increases flexibility in terms of transportation to the most remote areas such as the polar regions.

The BELUGA system (Balloon-born moduLar Utility for profilinG the lower Atmosphere), based on two different tethered balloons with scientific payloads of up to 20 kg, is available for vertical profiling. The balloons enable long measurement times of up to several hours and thus also filter sampling for later offline investigations.

In addition, ACME's observations can be supplemented by other platforms such as UAVs (Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles) or mobile, networked and scalable backpack systems. In addition to vertical profiling, a simultaneous, spatially and temporally high-resolution 2-dimensional characterization of the aerosol field on the ground can be achieved.

Since ACME fills the near-field gap of many ground-based remote sensing instruments, it is an ideal complement to them. For specific campaigns, ACME allows the highly flexible integration of additional instruments from TROPOS or external partners (during cooperations / trans national access, TNA), e.g. for chemical aerosol characterization or the detection of important trace gases. A small lattice mast equipped with meteorological instruments and inlets for aerosol measurements will complement the system.

Instrumentation

ACME Standard instrumentation of ACTRIS-compliant instruments:

• Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS, TSI 3321)
• Mobility Particle Size Spectrometer (MPSS, TROPOS)
• Condensation Particle Counter (CPC, TSI 3750)
• Nephelometer (AECOM Aurora 4000)
• Aethalometer (Aerosol Magee Scientific AE33)
• Cloud Condensation Nuclei Counter (CCNc, DMT CCN-100)
• Low-Volume-Sampler (LVS, Digitel)
• Cloud-Droplet Probe (CDP, at balloon, DMT CDP-2)
• Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) / Miniaturized Scanning Electrical Mobility Sizer (at Balloon, Brechtel mSEMS Modell 9404)

ACME Standard instrumentation of added values and auxiliary measurements:

• meteorological standard- and turbulence-parameters (U, p, T, RH), both, ground based (small meteorological tower) and for vertical profiling (payload for balloon measurements)