The refurbished observational platform of the Meteorological Institute

In the course of 2024, the measuring platform of the Meteorological Institute in Theresienstraße was significantly expanded and modernized. As part of the set up of the European ACTRIS infrastructure, new measuring sensors were integrated into a completely renovated and expanded station, primarily for remote measurement of clouds, aerosols and trace gases in the atmosphere. MIM is thus an officially recognized ACTRIS observation platform. ACTRIS is the “Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure”, a pan-European research infrastructure funded by EU and national donors, in our case the Federal Ministries BMBF and BMUV. Aim is to improve quality and availability of remote sensing measurement data on the so-called short-lived components of the atmosphere and to make it available via the network.

In its current state of expansion, the platform contains:

• standard meteorological measurements (e.g. temperature or precipitation, the latter can be seen in the examples above right)
• sensors to measure the radiation budget at the location,
• cloud radars at three frequencies (e.g. the X-band radar in the picture below right),
• several so-called ceilometers, lidar systems with low transmission power for observation of aerosols and clouds (e.g. in the foreground in the bottom left of the picture),
• and a microwave radiometer for observing temperature and moisture stratification in the atmosphere.Weitere Messtechnik wird im Laufe des Jahres 2025 integriert werden.

Links:

• Measurement data from the platform
• ACTRIS activities at the Meteorological Institute
• Official ACTRIS website