Collaborations

Routine deployment of the COBALD sensor together with high quality water vapor measurements is strongly supported by the MeteoSwiss external pageradio soundingcall_made station in Payerne and the DWD Lindenberg Meteorological Observatory (external pageMOL-RAOcall_made). Both facilities are part of the GCOS Reference Upper-Air Network (external pageGRUANcall_made) and the balloon soundings are complemented by ground based external pageLIDARcall_made measurements. Reconciling these observations with modeling results allows, in continuation of previous work, improving our understanding of midlatitude ice cloud characteristics and processes.

Since 2009, COBALD is deployed in field campaigns aimed to investigate UTLS aerosols, cirrus clouds and troposphere-to-stratosphere transport of water vapor in the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone (ASMA) region. These include the SWOP campaign (2009-present) by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (IAP-CAS) [external pageBian et al., 2012call_made], and the BATAL campaign (2015-present), jointly coordinated by the American (NASA) and Indian (ISRO) space agencies [external pageVernier et al., 2018call_made].

During the years 2016 and 2017 our group led the balloon campaigns of the EU-funded external pageStratoClimcall_made project, carried out in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM, Pune, India), the Arybahtta Research Institute of Observational Science (ARIES, Nainital, India), the Alfred-Wegener-Institut for polar and marine research (AWI, Potsdam, Germany), GRUAN and other partners. Three intensive balloon campaigns were conducted from two stations at the southern slopes of the Himalayas (Nainital, India and Dhulikhel, Nepal), providing unprecedented insights into the UTLS thermal structure, the vertical distributions of water vapor, ozone and aerosols, cirrus cloud properties and interannual variability in ASMA [external pageBrunamonti et al., 2018call_made].

Soundings from the external pageMaïdocall_made observatory on Reunion Island will investigate the influence of tropical cyclones on UT/LS water transport and cirrus formation over the Indian Ocean. COBALD sondes are contributed to the CONCIRTO project conducted by the Laboratoire de l'Atmosphère et des Cyclones (external pageLACycall_made), jointly run by CNRS, Meteo France, and the University of Reunion Island.

The application of COBALD is described in the DownloadOperation Instructions (PDF, 163 KB)vertical_align_bottom. Additional CFH data can be recorded with the DownloadSkySonde Plugin (ZIP, 2.1 MB)vertical_align_bottom. ETH Zurich is not entitled to sell the COBALD sondes as a commercial product.  We are interested to cooperate in scientific projects based on a Research Agreement (DownloadTemplate (DOCX, 24 KB)vertical_align_bottom) defining basic legal issues, the tasks and responsibilities of the partners, the supply of COBALD sondes at our own expenses, data exchange, quality assurance, analysis, and publication.  

The production of the COBALD sondes has been transferred to external pagemylab elektronikcall_made in Bubikon, Switzerland.  This partner supports our further COBALD modifications and the design of the Peltier Cooled Frost point Hygrometer (PCFH)