Highlights will be written for high-level accomplishments and published journal articles of ASR research. Each ASR principal investigator (PI) is expected to submit at least one highlight per fiscal year.
Research Highlights
Recent Highlights
Revisiting the deepening-warming decoupling theory
21 September 2021
Zheng, Youtong
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
An important but poorly understood phenomenon about the stratocumulus (low-lying blanket-like clouds) is its tendency to transition to cumulus clouds (cauliflower-like clouds) as the sea surface warms, called the stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition (SCT). The conventional wisdom is that the SCT is primarily driven by the enhanced evaporation of seawater. We revisit [...]
Detecting the unseen forces controlling thunderstorm formation
16 September 2021
Fast, Jerome D
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Distributions/Characterizations
The mountains of central Argentina generate some of the most intense thunderstorms in the world. Using weather radars, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility mapped the complex wind patterns responsible for the development of the clouds that grow into these intense thunderstorms. These [...]
Prediction for cloud spacing confirmed using stereo cameras
15 September 2021
Romps, David
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Distributions/Characterizations
What sets the sizes of clouds and the spacing between them? For shallow cumulus, we can at least offer an order-of-magnitude answer to this question: the natural length scale in a field of shallow cumulus is the depth of the boundary layer. Unfortunately, this hand-waving is a bit uncomfortable. If [...]
Arctic industrial aerosol particles impact clouds
14 September 2021
de Boer, Gijs; Maahn, Maximilian
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud-Aerosol-Precipitation Interactions
This work demonstrates that the particles emitted by anthropogenic industrial activities in the Arctic impact the properties of clouds locally.
Testing our predictive understanding of aerosol particles serving as ice-nucleating particles
11 September 2021
Knopf, Daniel
Supported by:
Research area: Aerosol Processes
Our predictive understanding of how aerosol particles serve as ice-nucleating particles (INPs), leading to ice crystal formation, inadequately represents their impacts on cloud properties and precipitation in cloud-resolving and climate models. We conducted a collaborative pilot field campaign as a "closure" exercise, to quantify our current ability to predict INP [...]