- 1Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, Braunschweig, Germany (anna.voss1@tu-braunschweig.de)
- 2The Cyprus Institute, Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C), Nicosia, Cyprus
- 3Université de Toulouse, Météo-France, CNRM, Toulouse, France
- 4University of Gothenburg, Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, Gothenburg, Sweden
- 5Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Thessaloniki, Greece
- 6National Observatory of Athens, Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, Athens, Greece
Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) have gained a strong presence in atmospheric sciences in recent years due to their flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and ability to access areas that are challenging for manned aircraft. As part of the #CHOPIN (CleanCloud Helmos OrograPhic Site ExperimeNt) campaign, the Unmanned Systems Research Laboratory (USRL) of the Cyprus Institute deployed UAS on Mt. Helmos, Greece, from October 11 to November 1, 2024, providing valuable data for the study of clouds.
The #CHOPIN campaign, conducted in collaboration with NCSR Demokritos and FORTH/EPFL, was hosted at the Kalavryta Ski Center with a base altitude for the UAS takeoffs and landings of 1690 m ASL. The campaign aimed to improve the understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and to evaluate remote sensing algorithms and models. Located in a rapidly changing "climate hotspot" at the intersection of various air masses, Mount Helmos is particularly sensitive to environmental changes, with interactions between wildfire smoke, pollution, sea salt, and Saharan dust. This unique setting provides an ideal location to study the dynamics of aerosol-cloud interactions.
This study presents an overview of the UAS operations held at Mount Helmos, highlighting collection of vertical profiles of particle size distribution from the ground (1.7km ASL) up to 3.5 km ASL, both inside and outside the clouds. In contrast to point measurements from ground-based stations, UAS can follow cloud movement and sample the entirety of the cloud, capturing aerosol particle size distributions below, within, and above the clouds, and cloud droplet size-distributions. These measurements provide valuable insights into aerosol properties and cloud-aerosol interactions at different altitudes. Additionally, consecutive UAS flights helped study the evolution of the Boundary Layer Height (BLH) at the Helmos site. The data collected can fill the vertical resolution gap of aerosol size distributions and provide additional datasets for comparison with fixed station observations.
How to cite: Voss, A., Papetta, A., Marenco, F., Bezantakos, S., Goret, M., Håkansson, L., Michailidis, K., Biskos, G., Kezoudi, M., Mihalopoulos, N., and Sciare, J.: Cloud Sampling with UAS during the #CHOPIN Campaign at Mount Helmos in October 2024, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4415, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4415, 2025.
