Clouds
Clouds have a large influence on weather and climate, but many processes regarding cloud evolution and formation of precipitation are still poorly understood. At SRON we work on improved remote sensing of cloud properties, such as droplet sizes, droplet concentrations and whether cloud tops consist of liquid droplets or ice crystals. I am particularly interested in using this data to improve representation of clouds in weather and climate models.
Aerosols
Aerosols affect health and climate. Anthropogenic emissions cause small changes in global cloud properties, which have a substantial, but uncertain effect of climate. The SPEXone instrument provides crucial, unique information on aerosol properties. I am particularly interested in the ability aerosol particles to uptake water from the atmosphere, which is fundamental to their effect on clouds and climate.
SPEX airborne and SPEXone-SG
The SPEX airborne instrument was built to demonstrate SPEXone technology and it also used as an airborne proxy for SPEXone. In 2024, I served as Principal Investigator of SPEX airborne during NASA’s PACE-PAX field campaign where valuable data was gathered to aid SPEXone’s validation. I am also Principal Investigator of the SPEXone Second Generation (SG) instrument, which is an improved version of the SPEXone on PACE. We are investigating potential flight opportunities for this instrument.
CO2M
The CO2M mission will be a unique European mission dedicated to monitor CO2 emission sources. As this is a challenging task, a software package is developed under ESA’s lead to simulate the performance of the mission in detail. I lead two parts in this ‘end-to-end’ simulator development, while also supporting ESA with mission performance and requirements studies.
