At the annual conference of the KIT Climate and Environment Center on June 5, 2025, Viola Hipler was awarded the Sparkassen-Umweltpreis for her master's thesis on the differentiation of fog and other low clouds in the Namib, which she wrote under the supervision of Hendrik Andersen and Jan Cermak in the AeroFog project.
Weitere Informationen zum AeroFog Projekt
From 2-6 June 2025, IMKASF hosted the 13th international Atmospheric Limb Workshop at the castle of Karlsruhe. Over the five days, achievements of current and past missions were presented, challenges were discussed and new missions were presented. The CAIRT mission, which is proposed by a consortium led by KIT for the next ESA Earth Explorer mission, was presented and discussed in several contributions, and the feedback from the community showed the need for CAIRT measurements. The scientific program was accompanied by a joint visit to the ZKM Museum and a conference dinner.
To workshop website
From 25 September 2024 to 9 April 2025, KLOCX is part of the TEAMx winter campaign. The research focusses on the study of low-level stratiform clouds and fog. The main aim is to better understand the different life-cycle phases of these clouds to improve the prediction of formation and dissipation.
More information about the measurement campaign
More information about KLOCX
As part of the IMKASF-coordinated HALO campaign ASCCI in March 2025, the GLORIA infrared spectrometer investigates the distribution of ozone, water vapor, and pollutants in the Arctic upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
More information
Finally, our new GLORIA-Lite instrument has safely returned home after successfully crossing the Atlantic aboard a stratospheric balloon at an altitude of 40 km last year. Analysis of the extensive amount of data collected is in progress.
More information
On February 6th and 7th, 42 PhD students and early postdocs gathered at the "Haus der Kirche" in Bad Herrenalb for the inaugural IMK-wide Early Career Scientists (ECS) retreat.
Dr. Eva Pauli (SKL) recently shared insights from her current fog research at IMKASF in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and NASA's Earth Observatory blog „Image of the day“.
more information
The IMKASF mourns the loss of its colleague Andrea Linden, who sadly passed away on 18 November 2024.
On 16 und 17 October Helmholtz scientists met for a workshop in Karlsruhe to discuss recent developments in remote sensing of the Earth system.
More information
During the 2nd General Assembly, 90 scientists from more than 25 institutions met to discuss the status of the joint research project, present results and plan the next steps.
More information
The head of IMKASF, Prof. Dr. Peter Braesicke, has joined the board of Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) as of 1 September. We thank him for his time at IMKASF and wish him best of success in his new role! Prof. Dr. Jan Cermak has taken over as acting head of the institute.
To press release (in german)
At this year's summer reception, the KIT Freundeskreis und Fördergesellschaft e. V. (KFG) honored Alexander Streili, among others, for the innovative design of the emergency safety device for the pipe supply lines for the IAGOS-CARIBIC system. Our warmest congratulations!
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The newly developed imaging FTIR spectrometer GLORIA-Lite was flown in a stratospheric balloon from Kiruna (northern Sweden) over Greenland to Baffin Island (Canada) from June 22 to 26, 2024. During this flight, the atmospheric composition was measured between 5 and 40 km altitude.
More information
Public access contributes to better transparency in science and makes it possible to jointly improve climate predictions worldwide.
To press release (in german)
"You can't give life more days, but you can give days more life."
The IMKASF mourns the loss of its colleague Thomas von Clarmann, who sadly passed away on 13.01.2024.
To working group website
The CAIRT satellite mission aims to clarify how the Earth's atmosphere reacts to climate change.
To press release
During the HALO (High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft) Symposium on 9 November 2023, Dr. Sören Johansson received the award for the best HALO publication 2023 for his work on upper atmosphere pollution from fires in the Amazonian region.
Link to the publication
In the course of a festive event in Frankfurt on 21 September 2023, Dr. Eva Pauli received the 2023 award of the Wilhelm-Lauer-Foundation.
More Information
In August and September 2023, the IMK-ASF uses the infrared spectrometer GLORIA on the research aircraft HALO to investigate atmospheric pollution at 5-14 km altitude caused by forest fires as well as by the Asian monsoon.
more informations
To the PHILEAS Helmholtz-Blog
This activity aims at providing standardized ways of reporting error budgets of satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature and composition.
To the meeting details
With his victory at the South German Championships, Christian Scharun qualified for the German Science Slam finals.
To the interview (ARD Audiothek; in german)
The NFDI4Earth Task Area "2Facilitate" held a successful 1.5-day workshop at Campus South in Karlsruhe on 20th/21st of October 2022. It served both as a get-together and networking in person and as a focused meeting on the contents and plans for the task area.
More information about NFDI4Earth
With contributions from the IMK-ASF, the Digital Earth book "Integrating Data Science and Earth Science - Challenges and Solutions" was published by Springer-Verlag in mid-July.
To the book (Open Access)
This flight extends the time series of KIT measurements with specially developed IR remote sensing spectrometers on stratospheric balloons. Since 1989, 26 large balloon launches were carried out to investigate the chemical composition of the atmosphere (up to ~40 km) under changing conditions by climate change.
To press release
Publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
To publication
KIT researchers and partners jointly investigate Earth System connections in high altitudes
To press release
The jury and audience award of the Falling Walls Lab Karlsruhe went to Christian Scharun with "Breaking the Wall of Greenhouse Gas Emissions".
Zur Info
ESA Has Selected Four Candidates for a New Earth Observation Satellite – KIT’s Proposal Focuses on Changes in the Earth's Atmosphere.
To press release
In the IAGOS-CARIBIC European research infrastructure coordinated by KIT, a 1.7-ton measurement laboratory is used in the cargo hold of a converted passenger aircraft. The technical requirements for this have now been met.
To press release
The European Climate Research Alliance (ECRA) celebrates its 10th anniversary on 10 March 2021. Interview with climate researcher Peter Braesicke, Chair of the Alliance.
To interview
Scientists want to evaluate local methane sources in the North Sea using high-resolution modelling.
To press release
The German Meteorological Society awards honorary membership to Professor Herbert Fischer, former director of the IMK-ASF (1986-2009).
To the German Meteorological Society
The "Digital Earth" project with KIT participation was awarded a special prize for Digital Science at the Digital Leader Award.
To press release
For the SouthTRAC aircraft measurement campaign, a KIT team and other partners started to Tierra del Fuego at the end of 2019 and targeted the so far little explored southern atmosphere.
To the project website
In the BLUESKY project, scientists are investigating the effects that the shutdown of social and economic life has on the atmosphere.
To press release (in German)
Even during the Covid 19 crisis, climate change continues. Climate neutrality must play an important role in economic support for development after Covid-19.
more information
Scientist honoured for best PhD thesis of the last two years.
A comprehensive study lead by IMK-ASF and published in Nature Geoscience reveals solid ammonium nitrate particles forming due to ammonia emissions at ground as a major component of the ATAL at 12-18 km altitude.
To the Nature Geoscience publication
To the paper (SharedIt)
More Information
Jennifer Schröter and Christian Scharun from IMK-ASF got the invitation to talk on the podcast „Modellansatz“ of the Department of Mathematics of KIT.
This podcast deals with recent modelling activities and strategies for the global atmospheric model ICON-ART. Together with Gudrun Thäter they discuss challenges when it comes to modelling the greenhouse gase methane, in particular.
The modelling activities are carried out in the scope of the Helmholtz Advanced Earth System Modelling Capacity (ESM) and Digital Earth (DE) project.
A workshop on “Opportunities for scientific collaboration between Argentina, Chile and Germany in the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere of the Southern Hemisphere”, organized by KIT-IMK-ASF and CONICET, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina, was held in Buenos Aires from 30-31 October 2018. More than 30 scientists from Germany, Argentina and Chile took part to discuss and define possible joint projects.
GLORIA observations across the polar front jet stream resolve the mesoscale fine structure of a tropopause fold in unprecedented detail and validate ECMWF IFS high-resolution forecasts.
The Executive Summary (ES) of the “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018” has been released. In a large international effort scientists, including KIT IMK-ASF researchers, have been assessing the effectiveness of the Montreal Protocol in protecting the ozone layer. The ES describes the current state and projected recovery of the ozone layer, including when the ozone hole will vanish.
In the "Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)" Atmospheric Sciences at KIT ranked 16th world-wide, 1st in Germany, and best research field at KIT.
Paper in Science describes implications of emissions from Asian air pollution.
Reinhard Süring Foundation honors scientist at 11th German Climate Symposium.
Académie des Sciences in Paris würdigt Karlsruher Klimaforscher
Zur Presseinformation
The main goal of these observations was to check the current understanding of stratospheric bromine chemistry and to estimate the amount of lower-stratospheric inorganic bromine, which has been assessed to be about 21–25 pptv.
shed light on the variation of the stratospheric residual circulation in time scales of years, and help to uncover gaps of current understanding.
Links to the highlights: http://www.imk-asf.kit.edu/english/2984.php; http://www.imk-asf.kit.edu/english/3024.php
In the project Namib Fog Life Cycle Analysis (NaFoLiCA), scientists from the KIT are investigating the dynamics of the fog in the Namib together with other partners.
Research aircraft HALO: Atmospheric scientists investigate the connections between monsoon and greenhouse gases and their effects on the global climate.
Climate research: International team investigates the air at altitudes of up to 20 kilometers - ammonia is the focus of the KIT scientists.
Mission with the research aircraft HALO investigates the influence of air pollution from large european cities on the earth's atmosphere.
The Scientific Council evaluates infrastructures as the basis for the decision on the National Roadmap. He describes the data generated by the AtmoSat concept as "unique" and "of the highest relevance".
Statement by the German Climate Consortium (DKK) with the participation of Prof. Braesicke on the withdrawal of the USA from the Paris Climate Agreement
The IMK-ASF is organizing on 05/06 July the 2nd International POLSTRACC Science Workshop.
With the new emission module, the atmospheric distribution of acetone was simulated with ICON-ART for the first time.