University of Mainz

The Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz is devoted to the education of meteorologists and atmospheric physicists in undergraduate and graduate programs. The institute employs ten scientific staff and eight support staff.

The research focuses on cloud and aerosol physics and chemistry, as well as the modelling of dynamical processes. The institute has experience in atmospheric experimental work since 1983, including instrument development and its use on a wide range of aircraft. Measurement campaigns have been performed in many environments from the poles to the tropics.  In recent years emphasis has been put on in-situ aerosol investigations, covering all aerosol types from biogenic to stratospheric particles, and on experiments related to the physics and heterogeneous chemistry of cirrus, tropical subvisual upper tropospheric clouds, and polar stratospheric clouds.

Considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of aircraft sampling inlets and particle measurement instrumentation. Present developments also include the real-time in-situ chemical analysis of individual aerosol particles or populations of small numbers of particles.