Aircraft-based observation of meteoric material in lower-stratospheric aerosol particles between 15 and 68° N

Abstract

We analyse aerosol particle composition measurements from five research missions between 2014 and 2018 to assess the meridional extent of particles containing meteoric material in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). Measurements from the Jungfraujoch mountaintop site and a low-altitude aircraft mission show that meteoric material is also present within middle- and lowertropospheric aerosol but within only a very small proportion of particles. For both the UTLS campaigns and the lowerand mid-troposphere observations, the surements were conducted with single-particle laser ablation mass spectrometers with bipolar-ion detection, which enabled us to measure the chemical composition of particles in a diameter range of approximately 150 nm to 3 µm.