Environmental & Climate Sciences Department Seminar

Marine Boundary Layer (MBL) cloud is an important component of the climate system. However, the representation of cloud-scale processes that determine microphysical and dynamical interactions in climate models remains poor, thus, leading to large uncertainties in climate prediction. Improving the representation of MBL clouds in climate models calls for comprehensive, long-term, process-oriented observations. In this presentation, I will discuss the work of using remote sensing-based measurements to investigate the microphysics and dynamics of MBL clouds.

First, I will discuss the limitations of retrieving two basic MBL cloud properties, i.e., liquid water content and vertical air motion, and explore how we can improve the retrieval algorithms using remote sensing observations. Then I will focus on the investigation of the warm precipitation formation process. Novel technique is developed to detect the drizzle particles and is applied to three observational campaigns to investigate the drizzle occurrence. Here I will present a new drizzle distribution climatology of the MBL clouds, which is significantly different from the traditional perspective. Next the dynamical factors controlling the precipitation process is investigated. Based on the utilization of a comprehensive retrieval products, I will provide direct observational evidence to show how the development of drizzle droplet is affected by the dynamical process, especially the turbulence in MBL clouds.