1,2,4,1,1,2,1,2,1,- 1Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research Atmospheric Aerosol Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany (ottmar.moehler@kit.edu)
- 2School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
- 3Bilfinger, Würzburg, Germany
- 4Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Atmospheric ice-nucleating particles (INP) play an important role for primary ice formation in clouds, and by that often initiate the formation of precipitation, influence the phase of clouds, and also impact their albedo and lifetime. A lack of data on the spatial and temporal variation of INPs around the globe limits our predictive capacity and understanding of clouds containing ice. Automated instrumentation that can robustly and accurately measure INP concentrations across the full range of tropospheric temperatures is needed to address this knowledge gap.
The Portable Ice Nucleation Experiment PINE was developed to close this gap. It became available in 2019, and an increasing number of instruments is producing a quickly growing database of INP number concentrations around the world (see https://zenodo.org/records/16745515). The measurements of immersion freezing INP cover a temperature range from about -15°C to -33°C and deliver longer term continuous data records for months or years with a time resolution of up to 5 minutes.
Of particular interest are INP measurements in the free troposphere which are ice-active at temperatures below -40°C and contribute to the formation of ice crystals in cirrus clouds. This led to the development of the two new PINE versions called PINEair and PINEtri, which are optimized for measuring INPs at controlled cirrus formation temperatures between -40°C and -65 °C and at controlled ice supersaturations. PINEair was successfully tested and operated onboard the German HALO research aircraft during the HALO-South campaign, the first versions of PINEtri are currently built. PINEtri can be operated like PINEair but is developed for laboratory or ground-based measurements e.g. at high-altitude observatories for measurements in the free troposphere.
The latest innovation is the development of another PINE version called PINEmon. This instrument version will especially be optimized and suitable for longer-term and continuous monitoring of immersion freezing INP at global atmospheric observatories, e.g. as part of the ACTRIS Research Infrastructure or the Global Atmospheric Watch program.
This contribution will explain the working principle of the PINE instruments and shows highlights of previous and ongoing measurements and applications.
How to cite: Möhler, O., Murray, B. J., Gehring, M., Curtius, J., Bogert, P., Böhmländer, A., Büttner, N., Daily, M., Hobl, A., Lacher, L., Macklin, J., Robinson, J., Ullrich, R., and Vatagin, A.: The Portable Ice Nucleation Experiment PINE: Current activities and new developments, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20972, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20972, 2026.
