Scientists take to the skies over Azores to gather cloud data
Clouds in the eastern North Atlantic region will come under scrutiny from a bevy of airplane-based instruments this summer, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. Scientists will call upon 55 separate instruments to analyze the physical and chemical properties of clouds and aerosols, tiny airborne particles that play a huge role in the atmosphere. The instruments will be flown aboard the Gulfstream-159, or G-1, research aircraft, the centerpiece of the ARM Aerial Facility managed by DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Scientists will conduct 20 missions this summer and 20 in the winter, operating out of a joint Portugal- U.S. airbase in the Azores. Read more
'New' wave-like cloud finally wins official recognition
Twelve "new" types of cloud - including the rare, wave-like asperitas cloud - have been recognised for the first time by the International Cloud Atlas. The atlas, which dates back to the 19th Century, is the global reference book for observing and identifying clouds. Last revised in 1987, its new fully-digital edition includes the asperitas after campaigns by citizen scientists. Other new entries include the roll-like volutus, and contrails, clouds formed from the vapour trail of airplanes. Read more
Researchers at the University of Bristol with collaborators from ETH-Zurich have shown that the rate of condensation of water on organic aerosol particles in the atmosphere can be very slow, taking many hours for a particle to change in size. This could have significant consequences for understanding how clouds are formed, affecting climate. The influence of aerosols (small particles less than 1 micrometre in diameter) and clouds (liquid droplets 1 - 1000 micrometres diameter) represents one of the largest uncertainties in our understanding of trends in past global climate and predicting future climate change, as recognised by the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Read more