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Abstract. Continuous aerosol measurements have been performed at the high-alpine site Jungfraujoch (3450 m above sea level) since 1988 by means of an epiphaniometer. The instrument, which determines the Fuchs surface area of the aerosol particles, was operated with a time resolution of 30 min. High correlation coefficients (r > 0.8) were found between the epiphaniometer signal and other aerosol parameters, which could be attributed to a rather constant size distribution of the Jungfraujoch aerosol in the accumulation range (0.1 < d < 1 /.tm). Well-defined diurnal variations with a peak in the late afternoon were observed on many days during summer, which was not the case during winter. Comparison with black carbon and radon daughter measurements revealed that these diurnal variations are due to vertical transport processes. A statistical analysis showed that the fraction of days with a well-defined diurnal pattern increased with decreasing stability of the atmosphere; however, late afternoon peaks also occurred during days when the potential temperature profile indicated a stable atmosphere. First simulations with ALPTHERM, a new convection model which takes topography into account, were able to explain the observed aerosol patterns. This indicates that slope winds over a certain catchment area are responsible for the transport to this highelevation site. The distinct seasonal variation with summer values, which are about a factor of 10 higher than winter values, could therefore be attributed to seasonally varying transport processes, due to the seasonal variation of radiation. The data show that even sites at very high elevation cannot be assumed to be in the free troposphere all the time.

The periodic table provides a classification of the chemical properties of the elements. But for the heaviest elements, the transactinides, this role of the periodic table reaches its limits because increasingly strong relativistic effects on the valence electron shells can induce deviations from known trends in chemical properties. In the case of the first two transactinides, elements 104 and 105, relativistic effects do indeed influence their chemical properties, whereas elements 106 and 107 both behave as expected from their position within the periodic table. Here we report the chemical separation and characterization of only seven detected atoms of element 108 (hassium, Hs), which were generated as isotopes (269)Hs (refs 8, 9) and (270)Hs (ref. 10) in the fusion reaction between (26)Mg and (248)Cm. The hassium atoms are immediately oxidized to a highly volatile oxide, presumably HsO(4), for which we determine an enthalpy of adsorption on our detector surface that is comparable to the adsorption enthalpy determined under identical conditions for the osmium oxide OsO(4). These results provide evidence that the chemical properties of hassium and its lighter homologue osmium are similar, thus confirming that hassium exhibits properties as expected from its position in group 8 of the periodic table.

Atmospheric transport processes, relevant to high Alpine sites, were deduced from 2 sets of aerosol records: a 9‐year record from the Jungfraujoch (3454 m) on the northern side of the Swiss Alps and a 2.5‐year record from Colle Gnifetti (4452 m) on the southern side. A classification scheme for synoptic weather types was applied to separate the aerosol data into groups corresponding to different atmospheric transport conditions. For both sites, vertical aerosol transport by thermally driven convection, acting between late spring and late summer, was found to be the dominant transport process. In summer, the thermally driven aerosol transport to both sites caused an increase of the seasonally averaged aerosol concentration between 0800 and 1800 local standard time by a factor of two. Under anticyclonic conditions, when subsidence on a synoptic scale is present, the thermally driven aerosol transport is most pronounced. Therefore, the aerosol determining thermal transport takes place within a synoptic scale vertical motion of opposite direction. Under cyclonic conditions, when lifting on a synoptic scale is present, the thermally driven aerosol transport is nearly absent. In winter, thermally driven convection does not contribute to the aerosol concentrations at both sites. Nevertheless, also in winter statistically significant differences in aerosol concentration were found between cyclonic and anticyclonic weather conditions, which can be attributed to the vertical transport acting on the synoptic scale. These differences in aerosol concentration were small compared to the corresponding differences in summer. Within the weather types, which are dominated by horizontal advection in the Alpine region, the aerosol concentrations are more diffcult to interpret with respect to the effective transport process.

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