INCA

funded by the European Community  through the Fifth Framework Programme

Interhemispheric differences in cirrus properties from anthropogenic emissions (INCA)

Background of the Partners

• Stockholm University is the only institute in Europe that operates a counterflow virtual impactor (CVI) that is optimised for high clouds. The CVI is presently the only device available to obtain information in-situ about the properties of particles incorporated into the crystals.
• Laboratoire de Météorologie Physique is the only institute in the world operating a Polar nephelometer capable of determining the phase and scattering properties of cirrus crystals in-situ. Combining this information with the spectral measurements of ice crystals using other optical probes and the direct measurement of condensed cloud water using the CVI, a strong closure of the cirrus properties can be acquired.
• In Europe, the Falcon aircraft is the only platform suitable to use for the objectives of the INCA project. No other European institute has more experience than the Atmospheric Physics department at DLR in conducting in-situ aerosol and trace gas measurements from the Falcon aircraft. A workshop  will be organised in 2000, after the first campaign, to discuss the observations and their modelling and interpretation with interested partners from the  modelling community.
• Water vapour is perhaps the most fundamental species in atmospheric science, but still one of the hardest to observe. In Europe there are two or three groups that are capable of measuring water vapour accurately in the tropopause region. Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique at CNRS is one of these institutes.
• The Norwegian institute for air research has successfully provided chemical forecasts in several previous airborne experiments, partly in cooperation with other INCA team members. This operative support has been developed into an extremely useful flight-planing tool, which is distributed via the Internet for easy access. Supplying the forecasts during the campaigns and providing the analysed fields after the campaigns is important support for a successful campaign.
• The department of Physics at University of Helsinki, one of Europe’s leading institutes in numerical simulations of particle and ice nucleation, is part of the consortium. Together with the other partners, the main objective of UHEL is to synthesis the observations into a form that is functional and easily accessible to a broad category of different models.

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