New observations help explain why the southern hemisphere is warming less quickly than the northern hemisphere.
New observations help explain why the southern hemisphere is warming less quickly than the northern hemisphere.
There are fewer ice nuclei in the air above the large ice surfaces of Antarctica than anywhere else in the world. This is the conclusion reached by an international research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) based on filter measurements of cloud particles at three locations in Antarctica. These are the first of their kind on the continent. The data now published fills a knowledge gap and could explain the large proportion of supercooled liquid water in the clouds of the southern polar region. In clouds, water reflects sunlight more strongly than ice. Fewer ice nuclei and less ice in the clouds could contribute to the southern hemisphere not warming as much as the northern hemisphere, the researchers write in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
It has long been known that the clouds over the Southern Ocean around Antarctica contain more water and less ice than comparable clouds in the Northern Hemisphere. However, without details on the causes and measurement series, climate models based on data from the Northern Hemisphere cannot be adjusted. The measurements of ice nuclei now provide an important detail for this. Further data will be provided by flights of the German research aircraft HALO, whose HALO-South mission ended in New Zealand in mid-October, as well as a series of Antarctic expeditions planned for 2026-2030 as part of the major international research project "Antarctica InSync".
Read More: Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS)
