UAV-based atmospheric measurements

The Aerosols and Clouds group operates unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for in situ profiling of aerosols and clouds in the lower troposphere. The group flies both fixed-wing platforms, capable of reaching about two kilometres above ground level, and multirotor platforms used for boundary-layer profiles up to several hundred metres. The UAVs carry optical particle counters and cloud droplet spectrometers, meteorological sensors for temperature, humidity and pressure, and filter-based samplers for offline analysis of ice-nucleating particles.

The measurements support cloud microphysics studies, air-quality profiling, satellite and remote-sensing validation, and process studies of sub-Arctic mixed-phase clouds. Field activities are centred on the Pallas Atmosphere-Ecosystem Supersite, in particular the Pallas Cloud Experiment (PaCE) campaigns. The group also contributes to the Aerosols, Clouds and Trace gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS).

Publications

Brus, D., Le, V., Kuula, J., and Doulgeris, K.: Data collected by a drone backpack for air quality and atmospheric state measurements during Pallas Cloud Experiment 2022 (PaCE2022), Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 5209–5219, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-5209-2025, 2025.

Böhmländer, A., Lacher, L., Brus, D., Doulgeris, K.-M., Brasseur, Z., Boyer, M., Kuula, J., Leisner, T., and Möhler, O.: A novel aerosol filter sampler for measuring the vertical distribution of ice-nucleating particles via fixed-wing uncrewed aerial vehicles, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 3959–3975, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3959-2025, 2025.