News

On February 5 and 6, 2026, we put two new instruments into operation on our northern measuring terrace: a high-volume aerosol sampler from Digitel and a low-volume aerosol sampler from Leckel. The unusually snow-poor winter worked in our favor: the terraces were hardly covered with snow, so the installation could be carried out smoothly. In snowy winters, outdoor installation is much more…

----- The internship at the Sonnblick Observatory (SBO) was a great opportunity to gain a better understanding of the practical aspects of climate research, take a look behind the scenes, and get hands-on experience in station maintenance. --- My name is Pamina Röhle and I am in my third semester of a master's degree in “Climate Change and Societal Transformation” at BOKU University in Vienna,…

New space surveillance system “Panopticon” installed at Sonnblick Observatory The innovative Panopticon space surveillance system has been installed at Sonnblick Observatory in cooperation with Cloudstone Innovations &…

A new lidar system, the Vaisala CL61, was installed on the roof of the valley station of the cable car in Kolm-Saigurn. With this system, it is now possible to measure backscatter polarization as well as cloud heights. This additional information enables a differentiated determination of aerosols and bioaerosols as well as a more precise classification of cloud types. The system thus makes a…

Plume from forest fires in Canada reaches the Sonnblick Observatory    Images: Photographs of fires and ash clouds in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba in May/June 2025. Source: Conair Aerial Fire Fighting Captain D. Josland. 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…

In summer 2024, an international measurement campaign took place as part of the European Center for Cloud Intercomparison Studies (ECCINT). In addition to the focus on the basic cloud physics parameters - in particular liquid water content, effective radius and droplet spectrum - the campaign was expanded to include vertical aerosol measurements. The Sonnblick operating cable car was equipped…

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…