Workshop to Explore Science Opportunities and Concepts for a US Aerosol-Cloud-Microphysics Research Facility; Boulder, Colorado - Fall 2019

Michigan Technological University, Houghton MI

Investigators

Abstract

This award is for a workshop that will explore scientific questions and set priorities for a potential US-based aerosol-cloud research facility. Clouds are an integral part of weather and climate but the physics behind many cloud processes are not fully understood. The US research community must currently work with colleagues in Europe to gain access to a large cloud chamber facility. The workshop will investigate whether a US-based large chamber facility would be a significant benefit to the scientific community and, if so, what that chamber should look like. The main societal impact of this workshop will be future-looking, as an eventual cloud-aerosol chamber would provide a national resource to help improve weather and climate modeling. The meeting will take place in Boulder, Colorado in late 2019. The main objective of the workshop will be to gauge community interest and to obtain a sense of priorities for the various scientific challenges that are likely to be amenable to laboratory investigation. The organizers note that the need for a cloud chamber with path lengths over 10m and a total volume over 100m3 has been previously described in agency documents and in community discussions. This workshop will address questions about what can be learned in such a chamber that can't otherwise be studied, and what kind of measurement capabilities it should have. The investigators have estimated attendance at 40-50 personnel with expertise in aerosol and atmospheric chemistry, cloud microphysics, cloud modeling and parameterization, radiation propagation and transfer, and turbulent convection and multiphase flows. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.