Locally emitted fungal spores serve as high-temperature ice nucleating particles in the European sub-Arctic

Gratzl, Jürgen; Böhmländer, Alexander; Pätsi, Sanna; Pogner, Clara-E.; Gorfer, Markus; Brus, David; Doulgeris, Konstantinos Matthaios; Wieland, Florian; Asmi, Eija; Saarto, Annika; Möhler, Ottmar; Stolzenburg, Dominik; Grothe, Hinrich

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12007-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12007-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12007-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 19

Research article

|

02 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 02 Oct 2025

Locally emitted fungal spores serve as high-temperature ice nucleating particles in the European sub-Arctic

Jürgen Gratzl, Alexander Böhmländer, Sanna Pätsi, Clara-E. Pogner, Markus Gorfer, David Brus, Konstantinos Matthaios Doulgeris, Florian Wieland, Eija Asmi, Annika Saarto, Ottmar Möhler, Dominik Stolzenburg, and Hinrich Grothe

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12007-2025-supplement

Data sets

Data of Fluorescent Aerosol Particles during the Pallas Cloud Experiment 2022 Jürgen Gratzl https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13885888

Highly fluorescent aerosol particle and fungal DNA data collected in Pallas from April to September 2023 Jürgen Gratzl and Hinrich Grothe https://doi.org/10.48436/0xmsb-eps20

Data from Portable Ice Nucleation Experiment during the Pallas Cloud Experiment 2022 Alexander Böhmländer et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13889647

Data for "Locally emitted fungal spores serve as high temperature ice nucleating particles in the European sub-Arctic" by Gratzl et al. 2025 Alexander Böhmländer https://doi.org/10.35097/bb9t8cv9gfaghcdc

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Short summary

We studied particles in the air over 1 year in the Finnish sub-Arctic to understand how biological particles affect ice formation in clouds. We found that fungal spores are the main contributors to ice formation at warmer temperatures. These particles are released locally and vary with the weather. Our results also show that we know very little about which fungi can form ice in the atmosphere, highlighting a major gap in our understanding of how nature influences weather and climate.