Cloud feedbacks remain the dominant source of uncertainty in estimates of global and regional climate sensitivity. Advancing our understanding of the key processes governing cloud formation, evolution, and radiative effects is therefore essential for improving their representation in climate models and reducing uncertainties in future climate projections.
Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), ice-nucleating particles (INPs), and secondary ice production (SIP) are central to cloud microphysical processes and radiative feedbacks, with far-reaching influences on weather and climate dynamics. This session focuses on the interactions between aerosols, CCN, INPs, and SIP, and their impacts on cloud properties, based on both laboratory and field studies.
Particular attention will be given to the Southern Ocean (SO), one of the cloudiest regions on Earth. Its pristine aerosol environment offers a natural laboratory for disentangling fundamental aerosol- cloud -radiation interactions in the relative absence of anthropogenic pollution, thereby providing critical insights into cloud microphysical processes.
We invite contributions that address pressing open questions on the coupling between gas-phase chemistry, aerosol nucleation and growth, cloud development, precipitation, and radiative impacts, with an emphasis on the Southern Hemisphere. Special focus will also be placed on advancing our understanding of SIP mechanisms, their influence on cloud evolution, and their representation in weather and climate models.
Topics of interest include:
• Laboratory studies on INPs and secondary ice production
• Aerosol, CCN, and INP sources and characteristics from field measurements (e.g., in-situ flight campaigns)
• Modeling of secondary ice production processes
• Advances in parameterizations of cloud formation and development in models (e.g., deep convective clouds, mixed-phase clouds, mesoscale convective systems)
Solicited Speaker: Prof. Dr. Mira Pöhlker, Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Germany.
Solicited Presentation: " The interplay of Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation above the Southern Ocean".
Mira L. Pöhlker