AIDA Chamber Experiments
Inside the AIDA cloud chamber
Scientists from the Centre for Atmospheric Science have participated in a series of experiments held at the
AIDA facility in Germany. In brief the AIDA facility consists of a very large chamber which can be cooled to temperatures representative of those found in the stratosphere, air in the chamber is then made to undergo an adiabatic expansion to form a cloud on the carefully controlled aerosol population within the chamber. Typical experiments at AIDA involve the study of ice nucleation on different types of aerosol particle including desert dust and soot particles, instruments are deployed to characterise the aerosol population in the chamber and the properties of the resulting clouds. Experiments can be repeated on the same type of aerosol but varying the cloud conditions to fully characterise the ice nucleating properties of the aerosol. The AIDA experiments have also provided an opportunity to intercompare similar instruments from different institutes around the world, with a particular emphasis on intercomparing the performance of various designs of ice nucleus counter.
