Środowiskowe Seminarium Fizyki Atmosfery

Impact of nucleating aerosols (CCN and IN) on deep convection is a controversial topic. Although the impact has been studied by the cloud physics community for decades (for instance, in the context of weather modification), the literature related to the climatic implication of cloud-aerosol interactions is confusing. In particular, there seems to be a lack of recognition of the fact that observed correlation between clouds and aerosols does not imply causality. This is because clouds and aerosols may co-vary according to the meteorology (i.e., correlation), but with only small effect of aerosol on cloud ensemble evolution. Moreover, climate models tend to overemphasize the role of aerosols because their inability to resolve clouds, deep convection in particular. This is where cloud-resolving modeling can help. In this talk I will review relevant issues and present results of numerical simulations that attempt to quantify the effects of CCN on deep convection.