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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-3971</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Temperature uncertainty characterisation of the FrESH droplet-freezing assay</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Perez Fogwill</surname>
<given-names>Germán</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9974-5798</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Welti</surname>
<given-names>André</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3549-1212</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>20</day>
<month>08</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>15</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Germán Perez Fogwill</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3971/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3971/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3971/egusphere-2026-3971.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3971/egusphere-2026-3971.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Reliable offline measurements of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) with droplet-freezing assays require accurate assignment of droplet temperature. We present FrESH (Freezing Experiment Setup Helsinki), a dual-plate immersion-freezing instrument developed for high-throughput analysis of filter-collected aerosol samples. FrESH uses standard 96-well polymerase chain reaction plates cooled in an ethanol bath with optical detection of freezing.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The relationship between bath temperature (&lt;em&gt;T&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;BT&lt;/sub&gt;) and droplet temperature (&lt;em&gt;T&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;well&lt;/sub&gt;) was characterised using five PT100 sensors at fixed temperature and during cooling ramps for two chiller models. Wells were consistently warmer than the bath, and the bath-to-well relationship was approximately linear over the range from 0 to -35 &amp;deg;C, with plate-averaged relations of the form &lt;em&gt;T&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;well&lt;/sub&gt;&amp;asymp;0.97 &lt;em&gt;T&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;BT &lt;/sub&gt;+ (0.2&amp;ndash;0.4) &amp;deg;C. Root-mean-square residuals of the linear fits were generally around 0.1 &amp;deg;C and remained below 0.2 &amp;deg;C in the sensor-resolved summaries. Analysis of routine FrESH measurement data revealed persistent spatial freezing patterns across the plates, consistent with position-dependent temperature variability. Combining the identified sources of uncertainty gives an estimated droplet-temperature uncertainty of 0.43&amp;ndash;0.44 &amp;deg;C (1&lt;em&gt;&amp;sigma;&lt;/em&gt;) over the operational range. This temperature characterisation is used to assign droplet temperatures and associated uncertainties in FrESH-derived &lt;em&gt;N&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;INP&lt;/sub&gt;(&lt;em&gt;T&lt;/em&gt;) spectra.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="15"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Research Council of Finland</funding-source>
<award-id>342227</award-id>
<award-id>337552</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Väisälän Rahasto</funding-source>
<award-id>250050</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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