Probing ice nucleation events on individual particles relevant to cloud formation

Atmospheric ice crystal formation in clouds can proceed by homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation. Better understanding of heterogeneous ice nucleation is of critical importance to elucidate fundamental processes of aerosol-cloud interactions - one of the most challenging problems for predictive understanding of Earth’s climate change. We develop and apply microscopy approaches for fundamental studies of heterogeneous ice nucleation on atmospheric particles. Hosted by environmental scanning electron microscope, we expand experimental observations of individual ice nucleation events at atmospherically relevant conditions. Applying multi-modal micro-spectroscopy methods, the physical and chemical properties of the identified ice nuclei can be characterized. Combined with theoretical chemistry calculations, the experimental data will be analyzed to gain better understanding of ice nucleation and parameterizations for cloud modelling studies.