Molecular-level Drivers of Clouds and Climate

The atmosphere is a complex mixture of interacting gases and mixed phase materials that together play a critical role for the Earth´s environment and climate.

The complexity represented by the interactions between atmospheric aerosol particles and clouds remains a key knowledge gap in our ability to forecast climate trends and predict the influences that humans will induce.

That lack-of-understanding largely results from a deficient picture, and molecular-level understanding, of the influence of phase behavior and phase change on important physical and chemical interactions.

In the atmosphere many important molecular-level processes are characterized by interfaces, which often means that the surfaces and phase state of the materials straddling those interfaces play outsized roles in determining large scale effects.

I propose research objectives focused on building fundamental insight into aerosol-ice-water interactions that can contribute to our ability to model climate-scale effects, like the water cycle and global heat budget. These are the Molecular Dirvers of Clouds and Climate.