Focus Groups

Focus Groups seek to increase understanding of specific processes that are of high importance to ASR but larger in scope than any individual PI effort. These formal groups have well-defined, focused science objectives, a plan for measureable progress, and may benefit from increased programmatic and infrastructure support. For details, see the Focus Group guidelines document.
Title: Aerosol Aging and Mixing State
Contact: Robert McGraw and Nicole Riemer
Description: This focus group proposes to study the sensitivity of aerosol physical and optical properties to the aerosol mixing state, and work to determine the extent to which models need to include all of this complexity. This focus group will bridge what is learned from properties and process-centered focus groups and the modeling community in order to improve the representation of aerosol mixing state in regional to global scale models.
Title: Ice Physical and Radiative Properties
Contact: David Mitchell, Greg McFarquhar, and Ann Fridlind
Description: The mission of the ASR Ice Processes (IcePro) Focus Group is to better characterize the ice physical properties represented in climate models and the processes that depend on them. IcePro is based on establishing a strong linkage between the observations used to characterize ice particle properties and the models with a variety of scales that are needed to investigate how cloud microphysical and radiative properties change with environmental conditions.
Title: New Particle Formation
Contact: Peter McMurry and Jim Smith
Description: The goal of this focus group is to develop models that accurately predict nucleation and growth rates and the composition of potential CCN, and to incorporate these into regional and global atmospheric models.
Title: Quantification of Uncertainty in Cloud Retrievals (QUICR)
Contact: Shaocheng Xie and Alain Protat
Description: The mission of the ASR Quantification of Uncertainty in Cloud Retrievals (QUICR) focus group is to develop a methodology for characterizing and quantifying uncertainties in current and future ARM cloud retrievals (VAPs and PI products), separately for different cloud regimes, in support of both retrieval algorithm improvement and cloud modeling studies.
Title: Vertical Velocity
Contact: Jennifer Comstock and Virendra Ghate
Description: The mission of the ASR Vertical Velocity focus group is to use ARM measurements to improve the understanding of the connection between cloud microphysics and cloud-scale dynamics and provide observational targets (vertical velocity products) suitable to evaluate large-eddy simulations, cloud-resolving models, and aspects of large-scale model parameterizations. For more details, see the web page.

The following proposals for focus group status have been provided to the working group chairs for all of the ASR community to comment on. In most cases, these are ongoing research areas within the working groups that have not been formalized. For information on working group efforts, see the working group web pages. Please share your feedback with the working group chairs by using the comment box provided to the left. Please include potential focus group title and contact in your message. If you have any questions about a particular focus group, please email the contact directly. See the Focus Group Guidelines (PDF) for criteria on how to become a focus group.

Title: Thermodynamic and Microphysical Properties of Mixed Organic-Inorganic Aerosols
Contact: Rahul Zaveri
Description: This focus group will work on improving the thermodynamic and microphysical properties of mixed SOA-inorganic aerosols useful for developing reliable treatments for SOA formation and its climate-related properties in regional and global climate models.

Title: Anthropogenic/Biogenic Interactions in SOA Formation
Contact: Jose Jimenez
Description: This is a complex problem which needs a large sustained effort in order to make possible progress in a 3 to 5 year timeframe.

Title: Aerosol Optical Properties
Contact: Arthur Sedlacek
Description: Formation of an Aerosol Optical Properties Focus Group would provide a framework for coordination of ASR scientific efforts in topics relevant to optics and aerosol optical properties, and would facilitate communication between investigators in the measurement and modeling communities.

Title: Madden-Julian Oscillation
Contact: Chuck Long and Samson Hagos
Description: The objectives of a Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) focus group are to evaluate existing hypotheses on the physics of the initiation and propagation of the MJO using ASR and other measurements, identify critical deficiencies in current numerical models that lead to low predictive skill of MJO initiation and propagation, and provide unprecedented observations to assist the community towards improving model parameterizations related to the MJO.

Title: Entrainment
Contact: Mike Jensen and Pavlos Kollias
Description: Entrainment is an important process in both cloud and aerosol life cycles and impacts atmospheric structure. However, this process is difficult to observe with current technologies. An interest group has formed to consider directions and objectives for better understanding entrainment processes. This group is still in the formative stage, but has convened a workshop in the summer of 2011 to start considering avenues for coordination.

Title: Convective-Stratiform-Anvil Transition (CStAT)
Contact: Ann Fridlind
Description: The CStAT mission is to advance the observational characterization and model simulation of convective ice properties and their transition to (1) stratiform ice properties overlying surface precipitation and (2) radiatively important anvil ice properties. Approaches to include observational constraint of model-simulated convection physical characteristics and processes (e.g., dynamics, cold pools, hydrometeor characteristics and size spectra, mesoscale and large-scale water budgets, latent heating, and radiative fluxes), development of observed and simulated case studies from ASR deep convection field campaigns (e.g., TWP-ICE, MC3E, AMIE), and identification of strong relationships in observations that models should reproduce.

Title: Arctic Aerosol-Cloud Interaction
Contact: Ann Fridlind
Description: The AACI focus group is being proposed to develop a more detailed,
quantitative understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and accelerate advances in modeling these interactions in the Arctic. The AACI focus group would provide a means of improving coordination among existing and future ASR observational and modeling activities, identifying critical knowledge gaps and developing and advocating innovative solutions to address them, and streamlining knowledge transfer from process-level understanding to parameterization development and implementation.

Title: Aerosol-Induced Invigoration of Deep Convective Clouds
Contact: Zhanqing Li

Title: Aerosol Effects on Ice Nucleation and Ice Clouds
Contact: Xiaohong Liu

Title: Cloud Effects on Aerosol Properties
Contact: Rob Wood

Title: Precipitation Susceptibility
Contact: Graham Feingold