After 4 months of shipping, on August 21, the Leipzig Aerosol and Cloud Remote Observations System (LACROS) arrived on the area of the New Zealand weather service MetService in Invercargill close to the airport. All measurement instruments survived the long transport and so setting up and starting the measurement devices went smooth and fast even in the cold and rainy shower weather of the southernmost tip of New Zealand.
With a public event that was held at the MetService site in Invercargill on 3 September, the campaign officially started. In the frame of the goSouth-2 project the measurements are planned to be run for 18 months. It is a joint project between German and New Zealand institutions. In the period between September 6 and October 11, the German aircraft HALO will accompany the measurements by flying over New Zealand and its surrounding with the on-board measurement instruments, for example the novel ice particle counter PINE-Air, that can measure ice-nucleating particles at temperatures down to –60°C.
LACROS is equipped with an extensive set of ground-based and in situ instruments. Highlights are the portable lidar system (Polly), cloud radar measurements (at 35 GHz and 94 GHz), a radiation station, an ice-nucleating particle sampler as well as a particle size distribution sampler SMPS (Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer). The laser pulses, which form the widely visible lidar beam, that are emitted from Polly will be a prominent feature in the following one and a half years in Invercargill. During night, it can be visible in a radius of around 2km of the site.
Ronny Engelmann from TROPOS, lidar expert and part of the goSouth-2 setup team introduces goSouth-2
to the audience of the inauguration.
goSouth-2 PI Patric Seifert from TROPOS explains the instrumentation to the guests of the inauguration event.
The setup-team of the LACROS station together with guests from different institutions from New Zealand.
Photo taken from https://www.linkedin.com/posts/regina-eisert_southland-christchurch-activity-7369201644640608256-_fpC