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Flying high: Schoolgirls experience science up close

Research has a gender equality problem. Men still dominate professions in mathematics, IT, natural sciences and technology - MINT for short. To change this, the Berlin-based MINT EC association and the University of Frankfurt am Main want to familiarize interested girls with scientific work. To this end, nine schoolgirls from all over Germany have now traveled to the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics (IAP) in Kühlungsborn to try their hand as researchers for two days. The girls, aged between 16 and 18, explored the institute on the Baltic Sea and gained an insight into everyday work in atmospheric research. Physicists talked about their path to science and familiarized the schoolgirls with the institute's state-of-the-art techniques. "Physics is so fascinating because we find it in all areas of life," says Lara, who attends 12th grade at a school in Rheinland-Pfalz. After graduating, she wants to study physics. "We can explain an incredible amount with it and yet there are still so many unanswered questions. Very interesting." In Kühlungsborn, the schoolgirls also had a chance to get hands-on: Using balloons with a diameter of two meters, they sent out weather probes that measured temperature, wind and humidity up to an altitude of 38 kilometers. The data was sent to the institute by radio and analyzed by the girls. "At the IAP, we use ground-based measuring instruments such as radars or lidars to explore the middle atmosphere," says Dr. Michael Gerding, who works in the Optical Sounding department and is supervising the project. "The balloons that the schoolgirls sent out provide us with complementary data for this." The schoolgirls' trip to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is part of the MS-GWaves research project, in which the IAP is participating. The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of the internal gravity waves in the atmosphere in order to make forecasts for weather predictions and climate change more reliable. The institute in Kühlungsborn has around 70 employees in research, technology and administration. About 20 of them are female. To ensure that this proportion increases in the future, there is a committee for equal opportunities that has initiated various measures in recent years, such as family-friendly home office arrangements or flexitime. Since 2014, the institute has carried the nationwide "berufundfamilie" quality seal. "We are happy to see more women in research," says Prof. Dr. Claudia Stolle, who is director of the IAP since last year. And who knows - maybe there will be a reunion with a young Rhinelander woman someday.

Citizens help science: Kühlungsborn institute conducts research in northern Norway

On the wide field of Alert Kristian Gaard in Salangen stands a single antenna. It looks a bit lost, yet it serves an important purpose: about 20 meters from the Norwegian's house, it continuously receives signals from an altitude of 90 kilometers. It is one of four new devices that scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn have now installed in northern Norway. The goal of the project, officially named SIMONe Norway, is to measure reflections from meteor trails to obtain information about horizontal winds in the atmosphere. "Our concept is unique in the world", says Prof. Dr. Jorge Chau, who heads the institute's radar sounding department. "Usual radars can only detect meteors that reflect their signals directly back to the transmit-receive site. We've extended that principle and flipped the interferometry." Chau's team developed new, smaller receivers that require only one antenna and can be installed quickly and inexpensively. As a result, the researchers can detect significantly more meteors - about 1,500 per hour, depending on the location, time of day and the year. It took four hours to set up the antenna and receiver on Alert Kristian Gaard's property. "It's great to have private individuals participating in our research who normally have nothing to do with science", says Dr. Ralph Latteck of the institute, who coordinated the setup of the four Norwegian stations. "All we need is a small patch of uncultivated farmland and an electrical outlet for the receiver. We're ready to go." The Kühlungsborn-based institute researches the middle atmosphere and plays a major role in the ALOMAR observatory in Norway. The team set up the first SIMONe stations in Argentina and Peru in 2018. This was followed last year by devices in northern Norway. Winds measured by the system provide researchers with information about motions in the mesosphere. "This will allow us to improve the wind determination", Latteck says. Because the system is straightforward to expand, the researchers plan to add more stations in northern Norway to scan as much sky as possible. In February 2023, the antennas will receive special attention: their measurement data will support the Vortex international rocket campaign in Norway, which is part of NASA's sounding rocket program.

IAP measures effects of the solar eclipse in the atmosphere

That the sun influences events in the atmosphere is commonly known in research. But what happens when solar radiation no longer reaches the Earth? The Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) is investigating this effect on Tuesday, when the moon partially obscures the sun. The institute in Kühlungsborn is participating in a Europe-wide ionosonde campaign. Ten measuring stations throughout Europe will accompany the partial solar eclipse. The only one in Germany is located in Juliusruh on the island of Rügen, where the IAP operates a field site. "The sun is the strongest source of ionization in the atmosphere," says Jens Mielich, an engineer at the IAP in Juliusruh. "With our ionosonde - a special radar for studying the ionosphere - we measure whether wandering ionospheric disturbances or waves are formed by a dimming by the moon, and if so, how strong they are and where they propagate." To do this, the engineer is creating time-resolved ionograms that record new data from the atmosphere every 30 seconds. He expects slight waves emanating from the moon's shadow toward the southwest. "But I think the effect will be rather weak for the atmosphere. The sun is just too low for that," Mielich said. Around 12:12 the darkening of the sun over Rügen is strongest - about 35 percent. "Hardly visible to the naked eye - if it's cloudy, not at all," says Jens Mielich. Those who are in Western Siberia in the afternoon around 4 p.m. (Central European Time) would have better chances to observe the eclipse - there, the moon covers 80 percent of the sun. The ionosonde campaign on October 25 is coordinated from Belgium.

Farewell to Prof Lübken

Celebratory colloquium with numerous guests Kühlungsborn, 24 June 2022 The long-standing director of IAP, Prof Franz-Josef Lübken, was celebrated at 24 June 2022 with a colloquium... (more in German).

"Dynamic Earth" colloquium at IAP

Final colloquium highlighting the research and results of DFG Priority Project 1788 Kühlungsborn, 02 June 2022 The "DynamicEarth” program completed its 7 successful years in 2022 after its conception in 2015. The Final Colloquium was held on 31st May - 2nd June 2022 at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn. The program, funded by DFG, was a successful collaboration with a diversified group of researchers with an established international research framework for gravity, geomagnetism, and space and atmospheric sciences to tackle their intra disciplinary questions. Associated projects have exploited the satellite data and addressed studies based on ground based observations and simulations. The colloquium provided the whole SPP team and the evaluation committee a chance to review the research conducted, results obtained and new science questions emerged during this dynamic journey around the earth.

Girls Day

Inform, excite, encourage Kühlungsborn, 28 April 2022 Under the headline "A day as atmospheric researcher" the IAP participated... (more in German).

Noctilucent clouds over Patagonia

Claudia Stolle becomes director of IAP

Physicist of the week

Certificate berufundfamilie consolidated