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Antarctica’s Unique Atmosphere: Really Low INP concentrations
  • +7
  • Heike Wex,
  • Oliver Eckermann,
  • Zsofia Juranyi,
  • Rolf Weller,
  • Alexander Mangold,
  • Preben Van Overmeiren,
  • Sebastian Zeppenfeld,
  • Manuela van Pinxteren,
  • Manuel Dall'Osto,
  • Silvia Henning
Heike Wex
Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research

Corresponding Author:wex@tropos.de

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Oliver Eckermann
Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research
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Zsofia Juranyi
Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum fur Polar- und Meeresforschung
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Rolf Weller
Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum fur Polar- und Meeresforschung
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Alexander Mangold
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium
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Preben Van Overmeiren
Universiteit Gent
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Sebastian Zeppenfeld
Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research
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Manuela van Pinxteren
Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research
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Manuel Dall'Osto
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
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Silvia Henning
Institute for Tropospheric Research
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Abstract

We present data on ice nucleating particles (INPs) from three Antarctic locations, a region for which INP measurements are still rare: the German Neumayer research station, contributing two years of data; the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Station with samples from two austral summer seasons; and the region of the Antarctic Peninsula, adding data from a research cruise and subsequent land-based sampling. While often land masses are INP sources, we found especially low INP concentrations for the two stations furthest south, Neumayer and Princess Elisabeth. No clear annual cycle could be identified at Neumayer. No strong signal from biological particles, as known to occur e.g., in the summertime Arctic, was observed. Our findings suggest that Antarctica lacks INP sources, especially from the biosphere, which exist elsewhere, even in the Arctic. Furthermore, a simple INP parameterization was developed, based on the Neumayer dataset and tested for data from Princess Elisabeth Station.