The CyCARE campaign – a common initiative between the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), Limassol and TROPOS – will fill a gap in the global understanding of aerosol-cloud interaction. The CyCARE campaign, which began in October 2016 and will last until April 2018, mainly aims to determine the role of different aerosol types on cloud and rain formation. These investigations will help answering the question how rain patterns will develop in future and what the effect of climate change on arid regions might be. Cyprus is a unique place where this interaction can be studied especially well, because the island is influenced by a large variety of air pollutants, desert dust, and marine salt particles.
In the following film, Dr. Albert Ansmann (Leader of the Working Group Ground Based Remote Sensing – TROPOS) explains what scientists learn from Cypriot dust. Long-term measurements are relevant to forecast the complex interactions between aerosols, clouds and precipitation; and to better understand their impact on environment, health and climate.
