RSS Research Award for new lidar technology for cloud research

(Press-News.org) Potsdam/Leipzig. The Reinhard Süring Foundation's 2025 Research Award goes to Leipzig-based atmospheric researcher Dr. Cristofer Jiménez for his contributions to a remote sensing technology that makes it possible to study the interactions between particles and clouds much better than ever before. The so-called dual-field-of-view polarisation lidar is based on two different aperture angles, which are used to observe and compare the reflections of laser beams in the atmosphere. Every three years, the Reinhard Süring Foundation Research Prize honours young scientists for outstanding work in a subfield of meteorology. In 2025, the prize was awarded for "New techniques, methods and applications of remote sensing of the atmosphere".

 

Dual-field-of-view polarisation lidar technology is comparable to a camera with two lenses with different aperture angles (fields of view). This allows the reflections of the laser light to be received from different angles, enabling the multiple scattering process to be investigated. These measurements can then be used to determine, for example, the size of the water droplets in the lowest areas of the cloud.

"The new dual-FOV lidar technology provides robust and accurate microphysical information on the liquid phase in clouds through active remote sensing for the first time," emphasises Dr Albert Ansmann from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), who supervised the work. The innovative technology has already motivated other groups in Europe, America and, above all, China to adopt this method.

 

While still a doctoral student, Cristofer Jiménez retrofitted five of the TROPOS lidar devices used worldwide with dual-FOV lidar technology, thereby playing a major role in enabling the institute to carry out cloud measurements in very different regions: Punta Arenas in southern Chile (in the very clean southern hemisphere), Dushanbe in Tajikistan (in the dust-laden and anthropogenically polluted atmosphere of Central Asia), Limassol in Cyprus (in a maritime atmosphere with high levels of Saharan dust and anthropogenic pollution) and Mindelo in Cape Verde (in the exhaust air area of West Africa with high levels of desert dust and biomass combustion aerosols). Continuous measurements in very different regions provide new insights into the interactions between aerosols and clouds. In addition, measurements are taken with several instruments on the research icebreaker Polarstern in the Atlantic, in the Arctic (MOSAiC expedition) and in the Antarctic (Neumayer III Station). "This now enables us to document the life cycles of mixed-phase clouds as a function of the ice and liquid phases and the interaction between the two phases on the basis of real measurements. These new insights into stratiform mixed-phase clouds help us to model our atmosphere more accurately and to better understand climate development," Ansmann praises.

 

Cristofer Andrés Jiménez studied physics at the Universidad de Concepción and wrote his master's thesis at the Centre for Optics and Photonics in Concepción, Chile. In 2014, he received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Becas Chile to pursue his doctorate at the University of Leipzig and TROPOS, where he has been conducting research ever since. After modernising the portable lidar devices, Jimenez recently turned his attention to expanding the stationary lidar device at TROPOS in Leipzig: MARTHA ("Multiwavelength Atmospheric Raman Lidar for Temperature, Humidity, and Aerosol Profiling") was equipped with an additional channel that can observe fluorescence, enabling the reliable detection of forest fire particles in the atmosphere.

 

After more than 10 years in Leipzig, Cristofer Andrés Jiménez will soon return to his native Chile, where he will set up a TROPOS lidar device at the Universidad de Concepcion to study smoke-cloud interactions.  The unique location in central Chile promises important insights into the effects of forest fires in South America on the atmosphere and climate.

 

Since 2008, the Reinhard Süring Foundation (RSS) has been supporting young researchers in the field of meteorology in collaboration with the German Meteorological Society (DMG). Reinhard Joachim Süring (1866-1950) was one of the most important German meteorologists in the first half of the 20th century. Under his leadership, the Potsdam Meteorological Observatory became a cloud research centre of international renown. His record-breaking free balloon flight in 1901 paved the way for the discovery of the stratosphere by Aßmann and Teisserenc de Bort in 1902. The "Lehrbuch der Meteorologie" (Textbook of Meteorology), co-edited by Süring, was the standard work for generations of German-speaking meteorology students.

Tilo Arnhold

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