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
Understanding how gas-phase reaction conditions affect organic aerosol formation
30 September 2022
Fast, Jerome D
Supported by:
Research area: Aerosol Processes
Aerosol particles affect visibility, human health, and climate change. They are required for cloud droplet formation, making understanding their formation important. Most aerosol forms in the atmosphere when carbon-based, or organic, gases released by plants undergo chemical reactions. Representing these processes in models is difficult due to their complexity. Researchers [...]
Understanding how clouds evolve during arctic cold-air outbreaks
29 September 2022
Fast, Jerome D
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
Observations show that cloud patterns transform from elongated rolls to broken cells along the pathway of a cold-air outbreak (CAO). However, the internal cloud processes that cause these changes are poorly understood. Researchers selected two cases of cloud pattern transitions seen during the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Cold-air Outbreak in [...]
Cloud adjustments from large-scale smoke–circulation interactions affect marine cloud transitions
27 September 2022
Diamond, Michael S
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud-Aerosol-Precipitation Interactions
Our study combines insights from models at very different scales (regional climate and cloud-resolving) to distinguish between how smoke affects cloud transitions by changing the large-scale environment versus by seeding additional cloud particles and absorbing sunlight near the clouds.
Identifying green vegetation variability over the Southern Great Plains
23 September 2022
Fast, Jerome D
Supported by:
Research area: Aerosol Processes
Large uncertainties persist in simulations of near-ground meteorological properties made using weather forecasting models associated with specifying surface properties, including the plant canopy. Scientists frequently derive details of the plant canopy for numerical weather prediction models using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite. MODIS’s 500-meter resolution cannot resolve fine-scale [...]
Quantifying the subgrid-scale variability in aerosol properties missing in models
22 September 2022
Fast, Jerome D
Supported by:
Research area: Aerosol Processes
A comprehensive suite of instruments was deployed on the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility's Gulfstream-1 aircraft to characterize aerosol properties over ARM's Southern Great Plains (SGP) site in north-central Oklahoma during the spring and late summer of 2016 as part of the Holistic Interactions of Shallow Clouds, Aerosols, and [...]