CLOUD-TRAIN Open Conference took place at KTC Königstein, Germany
The conference was organized by Frankfurt University, coordinator of the EU project CLOUD-TRAIN. More than 70 scientists from France, Germany, USA, UK, Finland, Switzerland, Portugal, China, and from the European Research Organisation CERN took part in a vital discussion on the new results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN and challenges of modern aerosol research.
"Ion-induced nucleation of pure biogenic particles" and "The role of low-volatility organic compounds in initial particle growth in the atmosphere" are the titles of the papers, which have been published in a scientific journal Nature on May 26, 2016, by the CLOUD collaboration team at CERN.
“These results are the most important so far by the CLOUD experiment at CERN,” said CLOUD spokesperson, Jasper Kirkby. “When the nucleation and growth of pure biogenic aerosol particles is included in climate models, it should sharpen our understanding of the impact of human activities on clouds and climate.” ("Cloud-seeding surprise could improve climate predictions") (CERN press release)
At the end of each day an open evening including drinks and snacks offered the chance for small group discussions in a casual atmosphere. Due to this every participant had the chance to handle the high density of knowledge that was transferred in a very short time period on his own level. The workshop dinner at the brewery of Wuppertal on the last evening gave the chance to socialize, get to know everybody’s work with or without mass spectrometry and thus helped establishing contacts to different working groups and specialists.”
One of the important discussion points was the progress with the joint publications of the scientific papers, based on the results of CLOUD experiments. Neil Donahue (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) chaired the session devoted to this part of the agenda. The ongoing CLOUD experiment was discussed in a real-time mode, quick-look results were presented and plans for the upcoming measurements were discussed and revised. Joachim Curtius (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, coordinator of CLOUD-TRAIN) reported the status of the project, its progress and forthcoming tasks. One of these tasks will be organising the CLOUD-TRAIN Open Conference in June 2016, which will be focused on organic aerosols.
Claudia Fuchs, the CLOUD-TRAIN young researcher at PSI, was awarded with "Best Poster Award" for the work "Secondary organic aerosol formation during aqueous phase processing in the CLOUD chamber at CERN "
The programme of the Summer School covered a wide range of research topics. The evaluation of the summer school contents revealed that the sessions on scientific writing and on the further career development in industry or in academic research were evaluated as very useful by the majority of the ITN fellows at the current stage of the EU Marie-Curie project. Hotel Baia provided seminar rooms for the general sessions as well as additional seminar rooms for the small working groups. A tour to the historical part of Lisbon University included the Science Museum and the Botanic Gardens. The tour was informative and interesting for the participants of the Summer School.
The seminar was given by trainers from Inside Edge. Inside Edge specialises in highly bespoke media training for experts. They currently work with over 30 universities, institutions and Research Councils across Europe. Trainers : Chris Jameson has extensive experience as a senior BBC network producer and reporter. For much of the last decade he has worked at BBC Radio 5 Live on a range of programmes and as a reporter based in Japan. He has produced several major set-piece broadcasts for the network and his programmes have won several Radio Academy Awards. Tony Prideaux is an experienced journalist, teacher and communications specialist. As a reporter he has worked extensively with the BBC and in commercial radio. Tony has undertaken training in colleges and universities and has held management positions within education and business.
CLOUD-TRAIN Fellows and PIs of the project Intensive discussions within the 6 existing Working Groups, based on the PP-presentations of young researchers, contributed to the further successful development of the project. For opening new horisons and preparing the instrument testing experiment CLOUD-T at CERN in spring 2015 several "breaking out groups" have been established during the meeting. The achieved results have been presented to the CLOUD collaboration community.
Joachim Curtius presented in his talk the status of the project Consortium Agreement and the schedule of the 3rd CLOUD-TRAIN Summer School. During an interactive discussion Fellows of the project reported about their secondments. Members of the CLOUD-TRAIN Supervisory Board discussed the implementation of the project and future plans.
The IAC 2014 (International Aerosol Conference) took place in Busan, Korea from August 28 to September 2, 2014. CLOUD-TRAIN collaboration was broadly represented at the conference. Young researchers of the Marie Curie project as well as the experienced scientists of the collaboration gave a number of talks and presented posters on the results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN.
A Summer School "Formation and growth of atmospheric aerosols" took place at Hyytiälä Foresty Field Station, Finland, from August 13 to 22. The Summer School was organized by Markku Kulmala, professor of Helsinki University, one of the participants of the CLOUD-TRAIN project. Coordinator of CLOUD-TRAIN, professor of Goethe-University Frankfurt Joachim Curtius also participated in the Summer School. On August 14 he gave a talk entitled "Ion-Induced Nucleation". In the afternoon session he discussed with the students the rules of good scientific practice. Representatives of the Associated Partners of the Marie Curie project CLOUD-TRAIN Douglas Worsnop (Aerodyne Research Inc.) and Katrianne Lehtipalo (Airmodus Ltd.) gave talks on atmospheric mass spectrometry and instrumentation. Almost all of the fellows of the CLOUD-TRAIN project participated at the Summer School.
Participants of the CLOUD-TRAIN Mid-Term Review meeting at Manchester University
On 27 March 2014, the University of Manchester hosted the CLOUD-TRAIN Mid-Term Review meeting. It started with a report of CLOUD-TRAIN Scientific Coordinator Joachim Curtius on the overall progress of the CLOUD-TRAIN project and achievements of the first 18 months of the collaboration. Each of the 13 CLOUD-TRAIN fellows gave a presentation on their research, their training program and their experiences as a Marie Curie fellow. In fruitful discussions between all Scientists in Charge, the representatives of the Associated Partners, the Fellows of the CLOUD-TRAIN project, the Project Officer G. Donini from the Research Executive Agency (REA), and the Scientific Reviewer Dr. J. Ingrin the status of the project, experiences with the ITN structures and potential needs for changes were discussed.
 Joachim Curtius explained in his talk that substances emitted by plants under stress are probably of high importance for organic aerosol nucleation. The topics of the presentations of Christina Williamson and Martin Heinrtzi were: “Nano-aerosol concentration and growth rates” and “From plant emissions to atmospheric new particle formation” respectively.
The CLOUD team including the PIs and the young researchers of CLOUD-TRAIN met at CERN, Switzerland, to discuss the progress of the project and the new scientific results of the ongoing CLOUD8 experiment. The CLOUD8 experiment is running from beginning of October to mid December 2013. Scientists from Finland, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Russia, Austria, and the USA were working together on the new challenges of the CLOUD experiment initiating adiabatic expansion runs where clouds are formed in the chamber. Ottmar Möhler from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology chaired the session on the ice nucleation experiments.
Ken Carslaw from the University of Leeds, a leading expert for global aerosol modeling, gave a talk on the complicated relationship between pre-industrial and present-day aerosol burden of the atmosphere.
The scientific papers which are currently in preparation for publication were discussed.
 “Thanks to CERN’s expertise in materials, gas systems and ultra-high vacuum technologies,” said CLOUD spokesperson Jasper Kirkby to the CERN press office, “we were able to build a chamber with unprecedented cleanliness, allowing us to simulate the atmosphere and introduce minute amounts of various atmospheric vapours under carefully controlled conditions – in this case amines and sulphuric acid."
15 young researchers of the CLOUD-TRAIN project and of the succesfully finished Marie Curie project CLOUD-ITN (among them the first author of the paper João Almeida) made their contribution to the scientific results, which have been published on October 6th, 2013. Read more in CERN press releases about the key discoveries made by the CLOUD researchers.
In the exhibition selected achievements of physics were presented in German. Posters, shows for a broad public, scientific discussions and science slams attracted more than 30 thousands of visitors, - informed the Medienbüro "Highlights der Physik". The participation of the CLOUD project in the exhibition has been prepared and realized by Frankfurt University, coordinator of the EU Marie Curie project CLOUD-TRAIN.
Dr. Andreas Kürten and Markus Leiminger, a graduate student of Frankfurt University, explained general mechanisms of cloud formation and the goals of the CLOUD project at CERN to the visitors of the "Highlights der Physik 2013" exhibition. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology provided the small expansion chamber in order to visualize the cloud formation process. Markus Schauer, a graduate student of Wuppertal University was supporting the team from Frankfurt during the exhibition. "Highlights der Physik 2013" has been organized by Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF), the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG), and University of Wuppertal, and was arranged by AC-Science-Consulting.
A Summer School organized by TROPOS (Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Leipzig) and supported by CLOUD-TRAIN took place from September 8th till 16th 2009 in Braunfels, Germany.
Kick-off meeting of the Summer School on September 8th, 2013, in Braunfels, Germany 24 students from all over Europe had the possibility to improve their knowledge in topics related to atmospheric aerosol, clouds, and atmospheric chemical processes. The young researchers could also upgrade their scientific writing and presentation skills. Following scientists from the CLOUD-TRAIN project gave lectures during the Summer School: Joachim Curtius (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany), Jasper Kirkby (CERN, Switzerland), Frank Stratmann (IfT, Germany), Ken Carslaw (University of Leeds, UK), D. Wosnop (AERODYNE), M. Gallagher (University of Manchester, UK), U. Baltensperger (PSI, Switzerland), and A. Hansel (IONICON, Austria).
Intensive meetings and sessions on CLOUD-TRAIN management took place parallel to the Summer School courses.
The CERN PH Newsletter published the article "The CLOUD Experiment", written by Jasper Kirkby, the spokesman of the CLOUD project
The PIs of the CLOUD-TRAIN project met with the CLOUD collaboration community at the KTC Königstein, Germany, in order to discuss the progress of the project. Coordinator of the project Joachim Curtius from Frankfurt University introduced 6 young researchers, newly recruited for the CLOUD-TRAIN project, to more than 50 scientists from Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Austria, and the USA. The obligations on the outreach of the project were discussed. Joachim Curtius informed all PIs that the ESRs should spend at least 1 day per year for outreach activities.
Frank Stratmann from the Institute for Troposphere in Leipzig presented the schedule of the 2013 Summer School. The courses and core themes were discussed.
An active discussion on how to help young researchers to participate efficiently in analysing the data and publishing the results was initiated by Jasper Kirkby. Jonathan Duplissy and Alessandro Franchin, young researchers of the CLOUD-ITN project (the EU Marie Curie Project which has been successfully finished in summer 2012) participated in the discussion.
CLOUD experiment at CERN during the fall 2012 series
Principal Investigators (PIs) of the EU project CLOUD-TRAIN during the kickoff meeting at CERN on October 15th, 2012 The recruitment process has been discussed in details. Institutions, participants of CLOUD-TRAIN, have been invited to publish the job advertisements at the EURAXESS webpage as well as at national web pages such as http://www.findaphd.com/ etc. Joachim Curtius highlighted the role of gender aspects set out by the Grant Agreement of CLOUD-TRAIN. |
last updated on Mai