Turbulent air in the atmosphere affects how cloud droplets form. New research from Michigan Technological University’s cloud chamber changes the way clouds, and therefore climate, are modeled.
Chat with an atmospheric scientist for more than a few minutes, and it’s likely they’ll start advocating for a planetary name change. Planet Ocean-Cloud is much more fitting than Earth, they’ll say, when so much of our planet’s life systems are affected by the interactions of clouds and the oceans.
The ability to predict the behavior of clouds gives meteorologists, climate scientists, physicists and others a better understanding of change of precipitation (currently one of the most difficult aspects of weather forecasting to predict) and improves climate modeling.
Last week, Prasanth Prabhakaran, Will Cantrell and Raymond Shaw, along with several coauthors, published “The role of turbulent fluctuations in aerosol activation and cloud formation” in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their article asks: Under what environmental conditions do cloud droplets form? Does turbulence — the chaotic air motion that results in a bumpier ride on an airplane — affect the properties of clouds, such as how many cloud droplets they have and whether they will produce precipitation?
Continue reading at Michigan Technological University
Image via Michigan Technological University
