Speaker
Description
Anthropogenic drivers of the climate system not only include greenhouse gases but also particulate air pollution. These anthropogenic aerosols exert a net cooling effect so that they partially mask greenhouse-gas warming. The magnitude of this effect is a major uncertainty for climate projections. The dominant mechanism behind this uncertainty is the response of clouds to aerosol perturbations, especially of cloud decks over the subtropical oceans. These clouds cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back to space and aerosols modulate their reflectivity and amount. We will discuss how the dynamics of cloud decks can be characterized as a data-driven dynamical system. Our emphasis will lie on the role of different timescales of the cloud response to aerosols, and why “opportunistic experiments” like the bright tracks that ship exhaust can create in overlying cloud decks do not tell the whole story of aerosol-cloud climate cooling.
| Category | Meteorology / Atmospheric Physics |
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