Kühlungsborn, 03.06.2025 - The new Arte documentary “The Mysterious World of Clouds” focuses on the fascinating and complex phenomena of clouds. The documentary was first broadcast on May 31, 2025 and is now available in the Arte media library.

Part of the filming took place at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn. The focus was on our research into noctilucent clouds - the highest clouds on Earth, which occur at an altitude of around 80 kilometers in the polar summer mesosphere.

Prof. Gerd Baumgarten explains in an interview how these extraordinary clouds are observed using special lidar systems and what scientific insights they offer for our understanding of the middle atmosphere.

The documentary shows other international research projects - from the cloud tower in Leipzig and measurement flights in Australia to cloud utilization in the Canary Islands - and poses the question of how human influences could change the cloud system.

The Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics is one of the German main centers for Middle Atmosphere research and maintains active cooperations with several international research organizations. The institute is located near the Baltic Sea resort Kühlungsborn, owns a separate site on the island Rügen, and is a major partner of the ALOMAR observatory in northern Norway. As associated institute of the Rostock University it is part of the teaching programme in physics. A total of about 90 persons is employed at IAP. The institute realizes an equal-opportunity and family-friendly human resource policy and is certified with the audit "berufundfamilie"  ('career and family').

Contact: Director Prof. Claudia Stolle cstolle@iap-kborn.de