EESS Student talk on "Climate-relevant natural aerosol processes in the Arctic"
Event details
| Date | 20.05.2025 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 12:45 |
| Speaker | Nora Bergner, PhD Student, EERL |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract:
The Arctic is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the globe with drastic local and global consequences. Aerosol and cloud processes play an essential role in the Arctic energy balance but incomplete process understanding and representation in climate models lead to uncertainties in quantifying current and future climate change. Natural aerosol sources, including sea salt aerosol and mineral dust, have complex source processes and are undergoing changes that remain poorly understood. Sea salt aerosol in the central Arctic can originate from sublimating salty blowing snow, but direct observations of this process are limited. Rapid retreat of glaciers exposes new land surfaces and leads to the formation of glacial outwash plains rich in fine glacial dust, which can influence cloud properties and radiative transfer through wind-driven emissions. We investigate these natural aerosol processes using field campaign data and experimental methods. Comprehensive measurements during the year-long “Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate” (MOSAiC) expedition in the central Arctic reveal that aerosol number concentrations, cloud condensation nuclei concentrations, and scattering coefficients are greatly enhanced during blowing snow events, particularly in fall. In southern Greenland, field measurements and glacial sediment samples allow us to evaluate the natural aerosol baseline and the abundance of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) in glacial outwash plains, which are critical for cloud phase and radiative properties. Preliminary results indicate that glacial dust shows good ice-nucleating properties, influenced by local environmental factors, including the presence of organic matter. These findings advance our understanding of Arctic natural aerosol processes and their possible climate impacts.
Biography:
Nora Bergner is a PhD student at the Extreme Environments Research Laboratory with Julia Schmale. Her research focuses on understanding natural Arctic coarse-mode aerosol processes and their climate-relevant properties. Before joining EERL, she completed her master’s degree in Atmospheric and Climate science at ETH Zürich.
The Arctic is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the globe with drastic local and global consequences. Aerosol and cloud processes play an essential role in the Arctic energy balance but incomplete process understanding and representation in climate models lead to uncertainties in quantifying current and future climate change. Natural aerosol sources, including sea salt aerosol and mineral dust, have complex source processes and are undergoing changes that remain poorly understood. Sea salt aerosol in the central Arctic can originate from sublimating salty blowing snow, but direct observations of this process are limited. Rapid retreat of glaciers exposes new land surfaces and leads to the formation of glacial outwash plains rich in fine glacial dust, which can influence cloud properties and radiative transfer through wind-driven emissions. We investigate these natural aerosol processes using field campaign data and experimental methods. Comprehensive measurements during the year-long “Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate” (MOSAiC) expedition in the central Arctic reveal that aerosol number concentrations, cloud condensation nuclei concentrations, and scattering coefficients are greatly enhanced during blowing snow events, particularly in fall. In southern Greenland, field measurements and glacial sediment samples allow us to evaluate the natural aerosol baseline and the abundance of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) in glacial outwash plains, which are critical for cloud phase and radiative properties. Preliminary results indicate that glacial dust shows good ice-nucleating properties, influenced by local environmental factors, including the presence of organic matter. These findings advance our understanding of Arctic natural aerosol processes and their possible climate impacts.
Biography:
Nora Bergner is a PhD student at the Extreme Environments Research Laboratory with Julia Schmale. Her research focuses on understanding natural Arctic coarse-mode aerosol processes and their climate-relevant properties. Before joining EERL, she completed her master’s degree in Atmospheric and Climate science at ETH Zürich.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- EESS - IIE
Contact
- Prof. Julia Schmale, EERL