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
Climate sensitivity and the direct effect of carbon dioxide in a limited-area cloud-resolving model
20 February 2020
Romps, David
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
In this study, cloud-resolving simulations are shown to exhibit a dramatic increase in equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) at higher temperatures, due to both an increase in forcing and a decrease in the feedback parameter. In addition, it is found that the direct effect of carbon dioxide offsets a quarter of [...]
Sensitivity of simulated deep convection to a stochastic ice microphysics framework
6 February 2020
Stanford, McKenna; Morrison, Hugh Clifton
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
Observations show that atmospheric ice particle properties vary at different times and locations even for similar cloud conditions and thermodynamic environments. Yet, the way ice particles are represented in weather and climate models typically does not account for this variability. Herein, we develop a stochastic ice microphysics parameterization that includes [...]
Estimation of pressure perturbations needed to explain contact nucleation
21 January 2020
Yang, Fan; Vogelmann, Andrew M.
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
The pressure perturbation hypothesis, which arose from recent lab experiments, has been proposed to explain the long-standing mystery of contact nucleation. However, validating the hypothesis is extremely difficult as it would require measuring pressure perturbations caused by the impact of ice nucleating particles on supercooled droplets. Instead, we improve understanding [...]
"Fungal shrapnel" found in the air during HI-SCALE
21 January 2020
Smith, James; Lawler, Michael Joseph
Supported by:
Research area: Aerosol Processes
During summer 2016 at the Holistic Interactions of Shallow Clouds, Aerosols, and Land-Ecosystems (HI-SCALE) Field Campaign, we found fragments of biological cells in the atmosphere that were many times smaller and many times more numerous that we knew existed. These fragments are most likely bits of fungal spores that have burst [...]
Episodes of warm‐air advection causing cloud‐surface decoupling during MARCUS
21 January 2020
Zheng, Youtong Youtong Zheng
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
Ship observations show that marine clouds can be highly detached from the underlying sea surface fluxes if the clouds move from warm to cold water.