Researchers uncover how black carbon evolves from hydrophobic particles to cloud nucleation sites, eventually removing the heat-absorbing particles from the sky.
Cloud physics and chemistry
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Convective Transport Explains “Missing” Ice near the Tropical Tropopause
Spaceborne lidar shows that more ice than expected is leaving the tropical tropopause layer in the atmosphere.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Atmospheric Turbulence May Promote Cloud Droplet Formation
Turbulence causes local variations in relative humidity, which can push particles past a critical saturation threshold for droplet nucleation.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
A Global View of Shapes and Sizes of Ice Crystals in Cloud Tops
Ice particles have systematic covariations and temperature dependences that are surprisingly consistent with a simple ice growth theory as revealed by satellites.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Quantifying Aerosol Effects on Climate Using Ship Track Clouds
A new methodology for measuring how human emissions influence cloud properties and radiative forcing developed by reconstructing cloud fields in maritime shipping lanes.
Posted inNews
Researchers Quantify a Seeded Snowpack
In Idaho, three hour-long cloud-seeding events created the snow equivalent of about 282 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Microphysics and Positive Lightning in Hokuriku Winter Clouds
The microphysics of the frequent, and frequently positive, lightning of Hokuriku winter clouds was investigated by systematic, in situ observation of individual precipitation particle type and charge.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Observations of Thunderstorm Updrafts and Downdrafts
Unique measurements of air motion within deep convective clouds offer new insights in our understanding of these storms and provide constraints for weather and climate prediction.
Posted inEditors' Vox
How Many Water Droplets Are in a Cloud?
The number of droplets in clouds affects how much of the Sun’s warming energy is reflected back to space. But how reliable are our attempts to count them?
Posted inNews
Science Explains “Rough and Chaotic” Cloud Feature
Research on the newest entry in the International Cloud Atlas produces insights into what these cloud features are made of and how they form.