Description:

Atmospheric aerosols have masked a large but highly uncertain fraction of global warming through their direct effect of scattering incoming solar radiation and indirect effect of serving as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). The poorly understood interactions between aerosols and clouds are a major uncertainty in the total anthropogenic forcing, which directly translates into a wide range in the projected warming. Therefore, an accurate representation of aerosols and clouds is the foundation of any attempt to predict long-term climate change or to assess the impact of climate intervention technologies.

In this session, we welcome presentations covering all aspects of laboratory experiments, field observations, and modeling research on the chemical and physical processes that govern aerosol and CCN formation and the associated climate impacts. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: (1) molecular-level understanding of aerosol formation and growth to CCN sizes; (2) ground-based, airborne, and remote measurements of aerosols and CCN; (3) regional and global modeling of preindustrial and present-day aerosol and CCN distributions; (4) model validation and climate assessment for climate intervention technologies (e.g., stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening) by studying natural analogs; (5) the role of convective cloud processing (e.g., cloud chemistry, glaciation, and detrainment) in aerosol and CCN formation, and (6) the effect of aerosol morphology and phase state on cloud formation and cloud properties.