Cloud Formation, Evolution and Its Impact on Climate Change
A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Meteorology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 726
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Clouds are a ubiquitous feature on Earth, and several aspects of life depend on their average behavior of generating rain in the expected time and place. Further, they are a key player in the global climatic balance. It is well known that their contribution to the planetary radiative balance is huge, and even small changes in the mean planetary cloud cover could either nullify or enhance the warming effect of greenhouse gases, depending on the signal of the response.
On the shortwave portion of electromagnetic spectra, low clouds mainly cool the planet by reflecting solar radiation back to space. This cooling effect is larger when cloud fields are close to the Equator, and at noontime. Thus, modest changes in cloud fraction, latitudinal displacements further from the Equator, and advance/delay in the peak of cloud cover yield significant changes in the integrated radiative balance. On the other side of spectra, high and thin clouds play a fundamental role in longwave forcing. Being mostly transparent to solar radiation but opaque to infrared terrestrial radiation, these clouds actively trap infrared radiation from the surface.
This Special Issue of Atmosphere aims to serve as an aggregation point for studies that contribute to the advancement of cloud science, with a special focus on cloud life cycle and impacts on climate change. Potential topics include (but are not limited to) the following:
- In situ measurements of cloud properties in aircraft and/or drones.
- Satellite studies of macrophysical and microphysical quantities of clouds.
- Remote sensing of clouds from the ground: sky cameras, vertical pointing radars, cloud and rain radars, lidars.
- Modeling studies, from cloud-resolving to global (GCM) models comprising formation, evolution, and climate effects of clouds.
- Theoretical studies with respect formation, evolution, and climate impacts of clouds.
Review papers that summarize recent developments and discuss implications for future research are particularly welcome.
Dr. Theotonio Pauliquevis
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- tropical convection
- shallow to deep convection
- ice physical and radiative properties
- cloud phase partitioning/mixed-phase
- warm low clouds
- mesoscale convective organization
- synoptic-scale convective systems
- monsoons
- aerosol–cloud interactions
- cloud parameterizations in GCMs
- regional-scale modeling studies on precipitation systems
- cloud-resolving/LES simulation studies
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