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CEN - Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability
Centerfor Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN)

Photo: UHH/CEN/Marcel Ruhnau

Presse, Outreach

Clouds and cloud research

Clouds are an important part of the climate system. Depending on how high they are, they can cool the climate or heat it up. For example, they influence how much solar radiation reaches the earth. At CEN we are researching the cloud system by plane, ship and satellite.

30 November 2022|Research

Clouds Less Climate-sensitive Than Assumed

Blick aus Flugzeug auf Cumuluswolken

Photo: MPI-M

Cumulus clouds in trade-wind regions cover nearly 20 percent of our planet, producing a cooling effect. Until recently, it was assumed that global warming would reduce the surface covered by these clouds, amplifying the warming. However, a team around Dr. Raphaela Vogel from Universität Hamburg...

16 January 2020|Research

Climate factor clouds — the field campaign “EUREC4A” intends to answer one of climate sciences great mysteries

Forschungsflugzeug HALO am Boden

Photo: UHH/CEN/H. Konow

On 20 January 2020, the almost six-week field study EUREC4A (Elucidating the role of clouds-circulation coupling in climate) will start. It aims at validating theories on the role of clouds and convection for climate change through extensive measurements in the atmosphere and ocean.  In...

22 January 2020|Forschung

By Air, Sea and Satellite: Major Cloud Research Campaign Launched

Portrait Felix Ament

Photo: UHH/Schell

In the context of the climate system, clouds remain a mystery. A new research mission will tackle that mystery. For a several-week-long period, four research vessels and four aircraft will gather data in the vicinity of Barbados – a mega-project coordinated in Paris and Hamburg. And...

17 September 2019|Interview

Getting Closer to the Clouds with HALO

Wolken mit einem Flugzeugflügel im Vordergrund

Photo: UHH/CEN/H. Konow

Heike Konow explores one of the last great mysteries of our climate system: the clouds. To do so, in several campaigns over a period of three years she and her colleagues investigated the sky over the North Atlantic – on board the research aircraft HALO, which took off from Iceland and...
12 April 2018|CEN News

The measuring instrument “ICI” will deliver new insights into mysterious ice clouds

Satellit im Weltall

Photo: Airbus

According to the IPCC, clouds remain one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in Earth’s climate. Now a new measuring instrument promises to unravel these complex formations – from a weather satellite.