University Of Houston: Does Pollution Make Thunderstorms More Severe?

Press release from the University of Houston:

PHOTO: Scientists and ARM staff pose outside Moody Towers. From left to right are Iosif "Andrei" Lindenmaier, ARM's radar systems engineering lead; James Flynn; Michael Jensen, TRACER's principal investigator from Brookhaven National Laboratory; Stephen Springst

A team of atmospheric scientists from around the nation is descending on the Houston area for the next 14 months to seek answers to a vexing question: Do tiny specks of soot, dust, smoke and other particles suspended in Earth’s atmosphere help determine the severity of thunderstorms? The knowledge gained may make weather forecasts more accurate and provide crucial data for improving predictions about how aerosols may affect Earth’s future climate.

“We’re a coastal environment, so it’s particularly challenging to forecast the weather.”James Flynn, research associate professor in the UH Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

The Houston deployment will also provide detailed data on local air quality. As an extensive field study in a metropolitan area, it will give scientists a unique opportunity to explore the effects of industry, vehicle emissions, and the built environment on weather and climate.
“We want to know how aerosols, the tiny particles that water condenses onto to form cloud droplets, influence the physics of deep convective clouds—the kind that often pack lightning and pour rain—and then how those same weather conditions affect the local aerosol characteristics and urban air quality,” said Michael Jensen, a meteorologist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and principal investigator for the TRACER field campaign. TRACER is short for TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment, a study being carried out by DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility.

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This press release was produced by the University of Houston. The views expressed here are the author’s own.