Speaker
Description
Clouds play an important role for the composition of the atmosphere and radiation balance. The influences between clouds and atmospheric processes are numerous and complex which makes them hard to quantify. Especially the presence of different aerosols has a strong impact on cloud formation because aerosols are acting as nuclei for cloud droplets and ice crystals.
Volcanic eruptions lead to a strong local perturbation of the atmospheric composition independent of weather conditions. The emitted aerosols like sulfate or ash affect the formation of different types of clouds. In the DFG research group VolImpact, the impact of volcanic aerosols on atmospheric processes is being investigated in different subprojects. The VolCloud project investigates the effects on liquid clouds (at Leipzig University) and on mixed-phase and ice clouds (at KIT).
The goals of the project are to investigate the climatic effects of volcanic eruptions and to gain general knowledge on aerosol-cloud-interactions by comparing cloud formation with and without volcanic eruptions.
To quantify the impact of volcanic eruptions, the atmospheric processes are being simulated with the ICON (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic) model developed by the German Weather Service DWD.
In the presented project the focus is set on new parametrizations of ice formation due to volcanic ash based on previous work. Recent laboratory experiments have shown that the ice nucleation efficiency depends on the mineralogical composition of the ash. These results will be used to investigate the interactions between the volcanic ash plume and mixed-phase and ice clouds.
On the poster an outline of the project and first results of the simulations with ICON will be presented.
| Category | Meteorology / Atmospheric Physics |
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