News

Plume from forest fires in Canada reaches the Sonnblick Observatory The annual forest fire season in Canada has unfortunately already begun and the effects are being felt as far away as Europe. As a result, the air quality in many parts of Europe was affected in the period from June 9 to 13 and visibility was limited due to the particles (aerosols) produced by the fires. These aerosols from…

On May 21, 2024, the measurement campaign DUST started at the Sonnblick Observatory, carried out by O. Meinander from the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and K. Bohm from the University of Helsinki. The team is trying to “catch” dust particles from the atmosphere using various passive sample containers (containers that do not electronically suck in the air), and analyses of…

Since 2017, Dušan Materić has been searching for the smallest plastic particles at the Sonnblick Observatory (SBO) in the micro and now also in the nano range. It all started with an INTERACT-3 Transnational Access Program and the analysis of snow. Since then, Dušan Materić has been a regular user at the SBO, using various methods to detect for the first time plastic in the snow and…

Increasing climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Aerosol-cloud interactions still represent the largest uncertainty in current projections of future climate. The Sonnblick Observatory of GeoSphere Austria, together with the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Vienna, aims to reduce this uncertainty through sound measurements and research and thus…

Today we are proud to announce that the European Commission has taken the final decision to establish the Aerosols, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) as of 25/04/2023. 17 European countries combine their resources to produce data and to provide open access to a wide range of atmospheric research technologies, services…

On April 12th and 13th, 2023, we installed a new measuring device on a measuring terrace on the Sonnblick: a "Poleno" from the company Swisens, provided by the University of Vienna as part of the VINAR cooperation. The transport of the massive weatherproof housing presented us with a brief challenge. In well-coordinated teamwork, we were finally able to transport all the heavy parts…

At the Sonnblick Observatory SBO of the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), an international measurement campaign to study clouds is running until 2 December. 24 measuring instruments, supervised by 38 scientists from nine nations, are investigating the formation of clouds. In addition, the European Centre for ambient Cloud Intercomparison Measurements is established at the…

On July 18th and 19th, scientists from the University of Vienna, TU Vienna, TROPOS and ZAMG met at the Sonnblick Observatory. The focus of the meeting was the development of the Austrian ACTRIS stations for aerosol in-situ observations (ACTRIS NF AIS) at the University of Vienna and at the Sonnblick Observatory. As part of the VINAR cooperation (https://vinar.univie.ac.at/), the data from these…

Due to the low rainfall in the 2021/2022 winter season, there was significantly less snow on the Sonnblick. In the summer of the previous year there was still enough snow for the winter season to start with a sufficient old snow cover. From January the snow depth increased only slowly. As a result, the Sonnblick was the winter season with the least amount of snow since records began. March,…

The extent to which the entire atmosphere is globally connected was shown by the last Saharan dust event on the Sonnblick. The desert sand deposits are clearly visible in the photos. A dark surface reflects less incoming solar radiation and thus heats up the surface more quickly. The change in albedo caused by the deposited Saharan dust causes the snow to melt.