Andrea Jenney
Oregon State University, OR·Earth & Environmental Science
Clouds can warm or cool the planet, and how they will respond to warming is one of the biggest uncertainties in predicting future temperatures. Scientists measure their net effect with the cloud radiative effect (CRE): the difference in energy leaving the top of the atmosphere with and without clouds.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Physics
- Topics
atmospheric science
climate science
cloud radiative effect
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Test whether the net cooling cloud radiative effect over oceanic ITCZs comes partly from differences in energy carried away by ocean circulation between stormy and calm regions, using reanalyses and CESM2 slab-ocean simulations.
- Assess how bright stratocumulus clouds over the eastern subtropical oceans, and the small area of storm clouds relative to surrounding clouds, amplify the cooling cloud effect in these regions.
- Determine whether the small anvil cloud area in oceanic ITCZs results from storms releasing less cloud (reduced detrainment), using CESM2 mechanism denial and forcing experiments.
- Update the Hartmann et al. (2001) top-of-atmosphere radiation formula to apply across the tropics by adding a longwave pathway that depends on anvil cloud fraction.
More about the research
Over the warm western Pacific and Indian Ocean, tall storm clouds roughly cancel out, and existing theory explains this. Over the eastern Pacific and Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zones (ITCZs), bands of rising air and storms near the equator, clouds have a net cooling effect. That effect is about 5% of the global CRE and larger than Earth's estimated energy imbalance. Current theory does not explain it.
Why it matters
How clouds respond to warming is one of the largest uncertainties in projecting future global temperatures. Explaining the cooling effect of clouds over the eastern Pacific and Atlantic ITCZs, and producing a radiation formula that works across the tropics, could help scientists narrow estimates of cloud feedbacks in climate projections.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Charlotte Demott
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Test how rain-formed cold lids on the ocean delay and then intensify tropical storms and the Madden-Julian Oscillation, by comparing regional atmosphere-ocean simulations with the lid active or disabled.
James Ruppert
University of Oklahoma, OK·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine whether real-world tropical Atlantic storm clusters self-organize or are forced by the large-scale environment, using SEA-POL C-band polarimetric radar aboard the R/V Meteor during PICCOLO.
Yunji Zhang
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure how cloud-radiation forcing changes buoyancy, vertical motion and moist entropy in shallow convection, deep convection and stratiform rain, using convection-permitting numerical model experiments.
The school
Oregon State University: 29 labs on PI Pages, $372M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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