Stratospheric aerosol plays an important role in global climate through negative radiative forcing. Volcanic eruptions are considered as the major source of stratospheric aerosol. Previous studies have shown that biomass burning is also an important contributor to the stratospheric aerosol budget. Despite the importance of stratospheric aerosols for global climate  ground based observations of them are rare. In June 2017 we have extended continuously running Lidar measurements at the MPI-M Barbados Cloud Observatory up to the lower stratosphere (to 30 km altitude). This stratospheric part of the measurements has not been exploited so far and could help to close a big knowledge gap.

The goal of the proposed master project is to investigate the stratospheric aerosol record obtained from ground–based Lidar measurements above the Barbados Cloud Observatory. To do so, the Lidar profiles will be analysed and evaluated with available satellite data (SAGE3, OMPS, CALIOP). In addition, trajectory analysis will be used to identify the origin of distinct aerosol peaks.

Supervisors: Claudia Timmreck and Ilya Serikov