Zhanqing Li
University of Maryland, MD·Earth & Environmental Science
Tiny particles floating in the air, called aerosols, help clouds form and influence when and how much it rains. They are not all equally influential, however.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Physics
- Topics
aerosol-cloud interactions
aerosols
cloud-surface coupling
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2029
What they work on
- Determine how cloud-surface coupling, the link between clouds and the lowest atmospheric layer, changes the influence of aerosols on clouds over urban, forested and coastal land surfaces.
- Quantify aerosol-cloud interactions under varying atmospheric conditions by combining ground, airborne and satellite sensor data with machine learning analysis.
- Use numerical simulations together with observations to test whether clouds coupled to the surface are more sensitive to aerosols than decoupled clouds.
More about the research
Earlier work has shown that aerosols affect clouds more strongly when those clouds are connected to the lowest layer of the atmosphere, near the ground, than when the clouds are detached from it. This connection is called cloud-surface coupling. Getting these interactions right is a major challenge for numerical models that forecast weather and simulate climate.
Why it matters
Clouds and rain remain among the hardest parts of weather and climate models to get right. Pinning down how aerosols such as pollution particles affect clouds over cities, forests and coasts could improve forecasts of clouds and precipitation. This may help communities and planners who depend on accurate rainfall predictions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lynn McMurdie
University of Washington, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how large-scale weather patterns and water vapor transport shape the character of snowfall events over Colorado's Park Range, using a winter-long radar and balloon dataset combined with numerical modeling.
Hamish Gordon
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Develop a new parameterization of atmospheric new particle formation that accounts for temperature and ions, using CERN CLOUD chamber data and field measurements, and evaluate it in climate models.
Justin Minder
University at Albany, NY·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify the mechanisms that govern changing temperature and precipitation patterns over the Andes by testing several hypotheses within a single set of high-resolution South American weather simulations.
The school
University of Maryland: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 602 research doctorates a year.
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