Clouds and aerosols play a key role in climate and weather-related processes over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. An initial forcing due to changes in the aerosol concentration and composition may also be enhanced or dampened by feedback processes such as modified cloud dynamics, surface exchange or atmospheric circulation patterns. This session aims to link research activities in observations and modelling of radiative, dynamical and microphysical processes of clouds, aerosols, and their interactions. Studies addressing several aspects of the aerosol-cloud-radiation-precipitation system are encouraged. Contributions related to the EU projects
CERTAINTY (Cloud-aERosol inTeractions & their impActs IN The earth sYstem) and CleanCloud (Clouds and climate transitioning to post-fossil aerosol regime) are also invited.
Topics covered in this session include, but are not limited to:
- Cloud and aerosol macro- and microphysical properties, precipitation formation mechanisms and their role in the energy budget
- Observational constraints on aerosol-cloud interactions
- Use of observational simulators to constrain aerosols, clouds and their radiative effects in models
- Experimental cloud and aerosol studies
- High-resolution modelling, including large-eddy simulation and cloud-resolving models
- Parameterization of cloud and aerosol microphysics/dynamics/radiation processes