Ny-Ålesund/Leipzig. Salt and sugar from the sea can rise as far as the free troposphere, thereby influencing both cloud formation and the Arctic climate. This is the finding of balloon measurements carried out by a team of researchers on Spitsbergen in autumn 2021 and spring 2022. With the Arctic becoming increasingly ice-free, more and more of these cloud-forming ingredients from seawater could enter the atmosphere and affect the radiation budget. The new findings therefore contribute to a better understanding of the complex interactions that lead to above-average warming in the Arctic, the researchers write in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), an open-access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

The study, led by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), also involved researchers from the University of Cologne, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the University of Oldenburg and the University of Bremen. It forms part of the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Transregios 172 programme, which has been investigating climate change in the Arctic since 2016 under the leadership of Leipzig University.