Clouds and Precipitation  

The way clouds move and change affects the transfer of water and energy across the Earth system. Accurately simulating the behavior of clouds and their precipitation remains a major uncertainty in climate projections. Scientists at PNNL are leading the way in improving our understanding and model representations of cloud systems and precipitation.

PNNL has a particular focus on how clouds and aerosols interact, which alters atmospheric radiation and  precipitation processes. Scientists at PNNL also work to improve how regional and global climate models represent these interactions. This challenging research requires performing field and lab measurements, analyzing observational data, and performing explicit physics computations to develop an enhanced understanding of cloud behavior. 

PNNL partners with the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility to obtain field data about clouds and their associated environmental conditions, including atmospheric aerosols and chemistry. These field campaigns reach from the tropics to the Arctic, acquiring rich datasets that researchers can analyze for insights and use to evaluate and develop models.

Research on clouds and precipitation at PNNL covers a wide range of topics. It includes exploring climate critical shallow cloud processes, understanding the initiation of storms, and describing interactions of clouds and precipitation with the land surface and aerosols. PNNL is also leading the way on studying mesoscale convective systems and severe convective storms, integrating observations with high-resolution modeling and machine learning methods.

Scientists at PNNL are contributing to improved representations of cloud and precipitation processes in multi-scale models. Advances in modeling clouds and precipitation at fine process-relevant scales can help inform climate projections.

Combining collaborative field work with various modeling expertise places PNNL at the forefront of research into clouds and precipitation.