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Journal articleAkbari H, Newman D, Fowler C, et al., 2022,
Micro-Scale Plasma Instabilities in the Interaction Region of the Solar Wind and the Martian Upper Atmosphere
, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-9380- Cite
- Citations: 1
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Journal articleBale SD, 2022,
Eugene N. Parker (1927-2022)
, SCIENCE, Vol: 376, Pages: 461-461, ISSN: 0036-8075- Cite
- Citations: 1
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Journal articleArcher M, Waters C, Dewan S, et al., 2022,
GC Insights: Space sector careers resources in the UK need a greater diversity of roles
, Geoscience Communication, Vol: 5, Pages: 119-123, ISSN: 2569-7110Educational research highlights that improved careers education is needed to increase participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Current UK careers resources concerning the space sector, however, are found to perhaps not best reflect the diversity of roles present and may in fact perpetuate misconceptions about the usefulness of science. We, therefore, compile a more diverse set of space-related jobs, which will be used in the development of a new space careers resource.
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Journal articleSalvi P, Ceppi P, Gregory JM, 2022,
Interpreting differences in radiative feedbacks from aerosols versus greenhouse gases
, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol: 49, Pages: 1-9, ISSN: 0094-8276Experiments with seven Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 models were used to assess the climate feedback parameter for net historical, historical greenhouse gas (GHG) and anthropogenic aerosol forcings. The net radiative feedback is found to be more amplifying (higher effective climate sensitivity) for aerosol than GHG forcing, and hence also less amplifying for net historical (GHG + aerosol) than GHG only. We demonstrate that this difference is consistent with their different latitudinal distributions. Historical aerosol forcing is most pronounced in northern extratropics, where the boundary layer is decoupled from the free troposphere, so the consequent temperature change is confined to low altitude and causes low-level cloud changes. This is caused by change in stability, which also affects upper-tropospheric clear-sky emission, affecting both shortwave and longwave radiative feedbacks. This response is a feature of extratropical forcing generally, regardless of its sign or hemisphere.
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Journal articleBrown ZL, Medvedev AS, Starichenko ED, et al., 2022,
Evidence for Gravity Waves in the Thermosphere of Saturn and Implications for Global Circulation
, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Vol: 49, ISSN: 0094-8276- Cite
- Citations: 4
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Journal articleWarwick L, Brindley H, Di Roma A, et al., 2022,
Retrieval of tropospheric water vapour from airborne far-infrared measurements: a case study
, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-897XWe describe studies undertaken in support of the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission, ESA’s ninth Earth Explorer, designed to investigate whether airborne observations of far-infrared radiances can provide beneficial information on mid and upper tropospheric water vapour concentrations.Initially we perform a joint temperature and water vapour retrieval and show that the water vapour retrieval exploiting far-infrared measurements from the Tropospheric Airborne Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TAFTS) shows improvement over the a-priori Unified Model global forecast when compared to in situ dropsonde measurements. For this case the improvement is particularly noticeable in the mid-upper troposphere. Equivalent retrievals using mid-infrared radiances measured by the Airborne Research Interferometer Evaluation System (ARIES) show much reduced performance, with the degrees of freedom for signal (DFS), reduced by a factor of almost 2. Further sensitivity studies show that this advantage is decreased, but still present when the spectral resolution of the TAFTS measurements is reduced to match that of ARIES.The beneficial role of the far infrared for this case is further confirmed by performing water vapour only retrievals using ARIES and TAFTS individually, and then in combination. We find that the combined retrieval has a DFS value of 6.7 for water vapour, marginally larger than that obtained for the TAFTS retrieval and almost twice as large as that obtained for ARIES.These results provide observational support of theoretical studies highlighting the potential improvement that far-infrared observations could bring for the retrieval of tropospheric water vapour.
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Journal articleHall RJ, Mitchell DM, Seviour WJM, et al., 2022,
How Well Are Sudden Stratospheric Warming Surface Impacts Captured in CMIP6 Climate Models?
, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-897X- Cite
- Citations: 9
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Journal articleDimmock AP, Khotyaintsev YV, Lalti A, et al., 2022,
Analysis of multiscale structures at the quasi-perpendicular Venus bow shock Results from Solar Orbiter's first Venus flyby
, ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS, Vol: 660, ISSN: 0004-6361- Cite
- Citations: 3
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Journal articleStephenson P, Galand M, Deca J, et al., 2022,
A collisional test particle model of electrons at a comet
, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol: 511, Pages: 4090-4108, ISSN: 0035-8711We have developed the first 3D collisional model of electrons at a comet, which we use to examine the impact of electron-neutral collisions in the weakly outgassing regime. The test-particle Monte Carlo model uses electric and magnetic fields from a fully kinetic Particle-in-Cell (PiC) model as an input. In our model, electrons originate from the solar wind or from ionization of the neutral coma, either by electron impact or absorption of an extreme ultraviolet photon. All relevant electron-neutral collision processes are included in the model including elastic scattering, excitation, and ionization. Trajectories of electrons are validated against analytically known drifts and the stochastic energy degradation used in the model is compared to the continuous slowing down approximation. Macroscopic properties of the solar wind and cometary electron populations, such as density and temperature, are validated with simple known cases and via comparison with the collisionless PiC model. We demonstrate that electrons are trapped close to the nucleus by the ambipolar electric field, causing an increase in the efficiency of electron-neutral collisions. Even at a low-outgassing rate (Q = 1026 s−1), electron-neutral collisions are shown to cause significant cooling in the coma. The model also provides a multistep numerical framework that is used to assess the influence of the electron-to-ion mass ratio, enabling access to electron dynamics with a physical electron mass.
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Journal articleEggington J, Desai R, Mejnertsen L, et al., 2022,
Time-varying magnetopause reconnection during sudden commencement: global MHD simulations
, Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-9380In response to a solar wind dynamic pressure enhancement, the compression of the magnetosphere generates strong ionospheric signatures and a sharp variation in the ground magnetic field, termed sudden commencement (SC). Whilst such compressions have also been associated with a contraction of the ionospheric polar cap due to the triggering of reconnection in the magnetotail, the effect of any changes in dayside reconnection is less clear and is a key component in fully understanding the system response. In this study we explore the time-dependent nature of dayside coupling during SC by performing global simulations using the Gorgon MHD code, and impact the magnetosphere with a series of interplanetary shocks with different parameters. We identify the location and evolu tion of the reconnection region in each case as the shock propagates through the magnetosphere, finding strong enhancement in the dayside reconnection rate and prompt expansion of the dayside polar cap prior to the eventual triggering of tail reconnection. This effect pervades for a variety of IMF orientations, and the reconnection rate is most enhanced for events with higher dynamic pressure. We explain this by repeating the simulations with a large explicit resistivity, showing that compression of the magnetosheath plasma near the propagating shock front allows for reconnection of much greater intensity and at different locations on the dayside magnetopause than during typical solar wind conditions. The results indicate that the dynamic behaviour of dayside coupling may render steady models of reconnection inaccurate during the onset of a severe space weather event.
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Journal articleRovithakis A, Grillakis MG, Seiradakis KD, et al., 2022,
Future climate change impact on wildfire danger over the Mediterranean: the case of Greece
, Environmental Research Letters, Vol: 17, ISSN: 1748-9326Recent studies have shown that temperature and precipitation in the Mediterranean are expected to change, contributing to longer and more intense summer droughts that even extend out of season. In connection to this, the frequency of forest fire occurrence and intensity will likely increase. In the present study, the changes in future fire danger conditions are assessed for the different regions of Greece using the Canadian fire weather index (FWI). Gridded future climate output as estimated from three regional climate models from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment are utilized. We use three representative concentration pathways (RCPs) consisting of an optimistic emissions scenario where emissions peak and decline beyond 2020 (RCP2.6), a middle-of-the-road scenario (RCP4.5) and a pessimistic scenario, in terms of mitigation where emissions continue to rise throughout the century (RCP8.5). Based on established critical fire FWI threshold values for Greece, the future change in days with critical fire danger were calculated for different areas of Greece domains. The results show that fire danger is expected to progressively increase in the future especially in the high-end climate change scenario with southern and eastern regions of Greece expected to have up to 40 additional days of high fire danger relative to the late 20th century, on average. Crete, the Aegean Islands, the Attica region, as well as parts of Peloponnese are predicted to experience a stronger increase in fire danger.
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Journal articleZhao L-L, Zank GP, Telloni D, et al., 2022,
The Turbulent Properties of the Sub-Alfvenic Solar Wind Measured by the Parker Solar Probe
, ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS, Vol: 928, ISSN: 2041-8205- Cite
- Citations: 34
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Journal articleLotekar AB, Vasko IY, Phan T, et al., 2022,
Kinetic-scale Current Sheets in Near-Sun Solar Wind: Properties, Scale-dependent Features and Reconnection Onset
, ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, Vol: 929, ISSN: 0004-637X- Cite
- Citations: 30
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Journal articleGrillakis M, Voulgarakis A, Rovithakis A, et al., 2022,
Climate drivers of global wildfire burned area
, Environmental Research Letters, Vol: 17, Pages: 1-10, ISSN: 1748-9326Wildfire is an integral part of the Earth system, but at the same time it can pose serious threats to human society and to certain types of terrestrial ecosystems. Meteorological conditions are a key driver of wildfire activity and extent, which led to the emergence of the use of fire danger indices that depend solely on weather conditions. The Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) is a widely used fire danger index of this kind. Here, we evaluate how well the FWI, its components, and the climate variables from which it is derived, correlate with observation-based burned area (BA) for a variety of world regions. We use a novel technique, according to which monthly BA are grouped by size for each Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) pyrographic region. We find strong correlations of BA anomalies with the FWI anomalies, as well as with the underlying deviations from their climatologies for the four climate variables from which FWI is estimated, namely, temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, and wind. We quantify the relative sensitivity of the observed BA to each of the four climate variables, finding that this relationship strongly depends on the pyrographic region and land type. Our results indicate that the BA anomalies strongly correlate with FWI anomalies at a GFED region scale, compared to the strength of the correlation with individual climate variables. Additionally, among the individual climate variables that comprise the FWI, relative humidity and temperature are the most influential factors that affect the observed BA. Our results support the use of the composite fire danger index FWI, as well as its sub-indices, the Build-Up Index (BUI) and the Initial Spread Index (ISI), comparing to single climate variables, since they are found to correlate better with the observed forest or non-forest BA, for the most regions across the globe.
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Journal articleKoller F, Temmer M, Preisser L, et al., 2022,
Magnetosheath jet occurrence rate in relation to CMEs and SIRs
, Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-9380Magnetosheath jets constitute a significant coupling effect between the solar wind (SW) and the magnetosphere of the Earth. In order to investigate the effects and forecasting of these jets, we present the first-ever statistical study of the jet production during large-scale SW structures like coronal mass ejections (CMEs), stream interaction regions (SIRs) and high speed streams (HSSs). Magnetosheath data from Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft between January 2008 and December 2020 serve as measurement source for jet detection. Two different jet definitions were used to rule out statistical biases induced by our jet detection method. For the CME and SIR + HSS lists, we used lists provided by literature and expanded on incomplete lists using OMNI data to cover the time range of May 1996 to December 2020. We find that the number and total time of observed jets decrease when CME-sheaths hit the Earth. The number of jets is lower throughout the passing of the CME-magnetic ejecta (ME) and recovers quickly afterward. On the other hand, the number of jets increases during SIR and HSS phases. We discuss a few possibilities to explain these statistical results.
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Journal articlede Wit TD, Krasnoselskikh VV, Agapitov O, et al., 2022,
First Results From the SCM Search-Coil Magnetometer on Parker Solar Probe
, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-9380- Cite
- Citations: 17
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Journal articleLewis ZM, Wild JA, Allcock M, et al., 2022,
Assessing the Impact of Weak and Moderate Geomagnetic Storms on UK Power Station Transformers
, SPACE WEATHER-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS, Vol: 20 -
Journal articleMartinovic MM, Dordevic AR, Klein KG, et al., 2022,
Plasma Parameters From Quasi-Thermal Noise Observed by Parker Solar Probe: A New Model for the Antenna Response
, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, Vol: 127, ISSN: 2169-9380- Cite
- Citations: 8
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Journal articleMyhre G, Samset B, Forster PM, et al., 2022,
Scientific data from precipitation driver response model intercomparison project
, Scientific Data, Vol: 9, Pages: 123-123, ISSN: 2052-4463This data descriptor reports the main scientific values from General Circulation Models (GCMs) in the Precipitation Driver and Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP). The purpose of the GCM simulations has been to enhance the scientific understanding of how changes in greenhouse gases, aerosols, and incoming solar radiation perturb the Earth's radiation balance and its climate response in terms of changes in temperature and precipitation. Here we provide global and annual mean results for a large set of coupled atmospheric-ocean GCM simulations and a description of how to easily extract files from the dataset. The simulations consist of single idealized perturbations to the climate system and have been shown to achieve important insight in complex climate simulations. We therefore expect this data set to be valuable and highly used to understand simulations from complex GCMs and Earth System Models for various phases of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
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Journal articleStawarz JE, Eastwood JP, Phan T, et al., 2022,
Turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection and the magnetic correlation length in collisionless plasma turbulence
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Observations of Earth&amp;#8217;s magnetosheath from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission have provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine the detailed structure of the multitude of thin current sheets that are generated by plasma turbulence, revealing that a novel form of magnetic reconnection, which has come to be known as electron-only reconnection, can occur within magnetosheath turbulence. These electron-only reconnection events occur at thin electron-scale current sheets and have super-Alfv&amp;#233;nic electron jets that can approach the electron Alfv&amp;#233;n speed; however, they do not appear to have signatures of ion jets. It is thought that electron-only reconnection can occur when the length of the reconnecting current sheets along the outflow direction is short enough that the ions cannot fully couple to the newly reconnected magnetic field lines before they fully relax. In this work, we examine how the correlation length of the magnetic fluctuations in a turbulent plasma, which constrains the length of the current sheets that can be formed by the turbulence, impacts the nature of turbulence-driven magnetic reconnection. Using observations from MMS, we systematically examine 60 intervals of magnetosheath turbulence &amp;#8211; identifying 256 small-scale reconnection events, both with and without ion jets. We demonstrate that the properties of the reconnection events transition to become more consistent with electron-only reconnection when the magnetic correlation length of the turbulence is below ~20 ion inertial lengths. We further discuss the implications of the results in the context of other turbulent plasmas by considering observations of turbulent fluctuations in the solar wind. &lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Journal articleMisal H, Kountouris I, Voulgarakis A, et al., 2022,
Eliciting public preferences for wildfire management policies in Crete, Greece
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;Fire regimes form an integral part of terrestrial biomes in the Mediterranean region as they provide essential disturbances which change&amp;#160;the&amp;#160;structure and function of plants that favour Mediterranean type climates. Fire is inextricably linked to such ecosystems and cannot be excluded from them. However, the intensification of human activities in Greece, coupled with increasingly unpredictable wildfires has created huge imbalances and jeopardised the ecological integrity of ecosystems. Expansions into the wildland urban interface, rural abandonment, and the focus on fire suppression are increasing the vulnerability and flammability of the Greek environment. The duality of fire is delicate, both at local and national level, catastrophic wildfires singe deeply on landscapes and economies, social burns can take just as long to heal. In Greece, this is further exacerbated by the burgeoning socio-economic and political complexities that have catalysed the current ineffective and unsustainable fire management strategies. Damages from wildfires affect ecosystem services which can lead to a reduction in human wellbeing. Understanding the interactions between ecosystems and humans through environmental valuation is key to implementing effective policy. This study uses economic valuation methods in the form of a choice experiment to elicit public preference for a wildfire management policy in Crete. A survey was deployed around the island, with respondents asked about their preferences between different management strategies. The policies outlined in the survey are made up of the following attributes: risk of fire, agricultural production, landscape quality and post-wildfire damage mitigation. Results from this study indicate a positive preference by the public for a new proposed policy. The findings from this study can be used for decision making in Crete and other similar southern European environments
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Journal articleKasoar M, Corsaro C, Voulgarakis A, 2022,
Metrics for Regional Climate Responses to Regional Pollutant Emissions
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;The Absolute Global Temperature change Potential (AGTP) and Absolute Global Precipitation change Potential (AGPP) are widely used climate change indices.&amp;#160; They can be applied quickly and easily to estimate the global mean temperature and precipitation responses to a pulse emission of a long-lived climate pollutant at a given time horizon, making them invaluable policy-relevant metrics.&amp;#160; They can also be extended to short-lived climate pollutants - where a sustained emission is more useful to consider than a pulse emission - by using their time-integrated forms (iAGTP and iAGPP).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, these metrics are only useful when taking a global-average perspective, and do not allow us to account for the regional nature of either emissions or their climate response.&amp;#160; Although long-lived greenhouse gases induce a relatively homogeneous radiative forcing (RF) which is not sensitive to emission location, nonetheless due to transport of heat there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the RF in a region and the local temperature response.&amp;#160; Moreover when considering short-lived pollutants such as aerosols, the region of emission is potentially critical because the short lifetime of such pollutants results in an inhomogeneous distribution of RF.&amp;#160; Therefore, for both long-lived and short-lived pollutants the AGTP/AGPP (or iAGTP/iAGPP) are not adequate when looking at climate responses on a regional scale, even though this would be the most relevant when evaluating different policy scenarios or climate change impacts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here, we combine the results of simulations from the Precipitation Driver Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP) where emissions (or concentrations) of multiple long- and short-lived climate pollutants were perturbed globally in nine
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Conference paperLaMoury A, Hietala H, Eastwood J, et al., 2022,
Magnetosheath jets at the magnetopause: reconnection onset conditions
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;Magnetosheath jets are localised pulses of high dynamic pressure plasma observed in Earth&amp;#8217;s magnetosheath. They are believed to form from the interaction between the solar wind and ripples in Earth&amp;#8217;s collisionless bow shock, before propagating into the turbulent magnetosheath. Upon impacting the magnetopause, jets can influence magnetospheric dynamics. In particular, previous studies have suggested that, by virtue of their internal magnetic field orientations, jet impacts may be able to trigger local magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause. This is most notable during traditionally unfavourable solar wind conditions, such as intervals of northward interplanetary magnetic field. This idea has been supported by a small number of case studies and simulations. We present a large statistical study into the properties of jets near the magnetopause. We examine the components of the magnetic reconnection onset condition &amp;#8211; the competing effects of magnetic shear angle and plasma beta &amp;#8211; to determine how jets may affect magnetopause reconnection in a statistical sense. We find that, due to their increased beta, jet plasma is typically not favourable to reconnection, often more so than the non-jet magnetosheath. Most jets do contain some reconnection-favourable plasma, however, suggesting that jets may be able to both trigger and suppress magnetopause reconnection. We complement this with new case studies of jets interacting with the magnetopause.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Conference paperPlaschke F, Koller F, Preisser Renteria LF, et al., 2022,
Magnetosheath jet occurrence in solar wind parameter space
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;Plasma jets in the magnetosheath are identified as strong local enhancements in dynamic pressure. Being created at the bow shock, they are able to traverse the entire magnetosheath and impact the magnetopause. There, they can severely indent the boundary, set up waves on it, and trigger magnetic reconnection. They are a key yet heavily underexplored element in the solar wind &amp;#8211; magnetosphere coupling. Jets are mostly (but not exclusively) observed downstream of the quasi-parallel shock. Consequently, they have been observed significantly more often under low interplanetary magnetic field cone angle conditions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this study, we revisit the occurrence of jets, this time taking into account the whole space of parameters of solar wind input conditions. We answer the question where in this space jet occurrences cluster and how the emerging patterns change when the solar wind input becomes significantly different in nature, e.g., under the influence of coronal mass ejections or stream interaction regions.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Journal articleHellinger P, Montagud-Camps V, Franci L, et al., 2022,
Ion-scale transition of plasma turbulence: Pressure-strain effect
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;We investigate properties of solar-wind like plasma turbulence using direct numerical simulations. We analyze the transition from large (magnetohydrodynamic) scales to ion ones using two-dimensional hybrid (fluid electrons, kinetic ions) simulations of decaying turbulence. To quantify turbulence properties we apply spectral transfer and Karman-Howarth-Monin equations for extended compressible Hall MHD to the simulated results. The simulation results indicate that the transition from MHD to ion scales (the so called ion break) results from a combination of an onset of Hall physics and of an effective dissipation owing to the pressure-strain energy-exchange channel and resistivity. We discuss the simulation results in the context of the solar wind.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Journal articleMatteini L, Hellinger P, Landi S, et al., 2022,
Kinetic Instabilities from Ion Beams and Differential Streaming in the Close-Sun Solar Wind: Hybrid Expanding Simulations
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;Parker Solar Probe observations in the inner heliosphere have demonstrated that non-thermal features in solar wind ion distributions are particularly enhanced and dominant in the close-Sun environment. Proton beams and large differential flows of alpha particles are ubiquitously observed, also in slow, though Alfv&amp;#233;nic, streams, qualitatively at odds with typical observations at 1AU, where non-Maxwellian features are usually less apparent in the slow solar wind. All this reinforces the idea, also supported by past Helios and Ulysses explorations, that preferential ion heating and acceleration take place already in the Corona and signatures of the kinetic processes involved are gradually washed out during expansion. To explore further properties of ion differential streaming during expansion, as well as associated kinetic instabilities and their possible role in plasma heating, we perform expanding box hybrid simulations of a multi-species solar wind composed by proton core, beam and alpha particles, focussing on the role of wave-particle interactions in shaping distribution functions and controlling relative drifts. Radial trends and typical distributions found in simulations are then compared with PSP and Solar Orbiter observations in the inner Heliosphere.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Journal articleWang S, Toumi R, 2022,
More tropical cyclones are striking coasts with major intensities at landfall
, Scientific Reports, Vol: 12, ISSN: 2045-2322In this study we show that the number of annual global tropical cyclone (TC) landfalls with major landfall intensity (LI≥50 m s-1) has nearly doubled from 1982 to 2020. The lifetime maximum intensity (LMI) of global major landfalling TCs has been increasing by 0.8 m s-1 per decade (p<0.05), but this significance of intensity change disappears at landfall (0.3 m s-1 per decade, p=0.69). The lack of a significant LI trend is caused by the much larger variance of LI than that of LMI in all basins and explains why a significant count change of TCs with major intensity at landfall has only now emerged. Basin-wide TC trends of intensity and spatial distribution have been reported, but this long-term major TC landfall count change may be the most socio-economic significant.
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Conference paperGryspeerdt E, Louro Coelho M, Smith T, et al., 2022,
Measuring cloud sensitivity to aerosols at a global scale using isolated aerosol sources
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;The sensitivity of clouds to anthropogenic aerosol perturbations remains one of the largest uncertainties in the human forcing of the climate system. A key difficulty is in isolating the impact of aerosols from large-scale covariability of aerosol and cloud properties. Natural experiments, where aerosol is produced independently of the cloud and meteorological properties, provide a pathway to address this issue. These aerosol sources often modify cloud properties, leaving linear cloud features known as shiptracks (when formed by a ship) or pollution tracks (more generally).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this work, we use a database of point sources of aerosol over both land and ocean to identify clouds that are sensitive to aerosol and to measure their response. Using a neural network to identify when a point source is modifying the cloud, we are able to measure the sensitivity of individual clouds to aerosol at a global scale, looking at over 400 million cases.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We find the probability of track formation is strongly dependent on the background cloud and meteorological state, similar to previous regional studies. With our global database, we identify regions that are strongly susceptible to aerosol perturbations, even where aerosol sources are rare. We find that there are several regions that are highly susceptible to aerosol, but that have been previously overlooked due to a low frequency of pollution tracks. &amp;#160; &amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Journal articleArcher M, Waters C, Dewan S, et al., 2022,
Developing a new space sector careers resource based on educational research recommendations
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;Educational research shows participation issues across Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are due to whether students see these fields and their potential career opportunities as for &amp;#8220;people like me&amp;#8221;. These perceptions form early and remain relatively stable with age, which has led to recommendations for increased provision and quality of careers education/engagement at both primary and secondary levels. Space-related roles should be rife for inclusion in careers education resources. However, we find that current UK careers resources concerning the space sector do not perhaps best reflect the diversity of roles present and may in fact perpetuate misconceptions about the usefulness of science. We present the development process of a new space careers resource, detailing how we have attempted to improve the diversity of space-related careers highlighted as well as addressing the key issues and recommendations raised by recent educational research.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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Conference paperGoren T, Feingold G, Gryspeerdt E, et al., 2022,
Exploring the Effect of Aerosol on Marine Cloud Cover Using a Counterfactual Approach
<jats:p>&lt;p&gt;Aerosol&amp;#8211;cloud interactions in marine stratocumulus clouds (Sc) are among the most challenging frontiers in cloud&amp;#8211;climate research.&amp;#160;In particular, the cloud cover susceptibility to droplet concentration remained under-represented in the literature.&amp;#160;We developed methodologies to estimate what&amp;#160;would have been the cloud cover and&amp;#160;the associated&amp;#160;radiative&amp;#160;&lt;span&gt;effect&lt;/span&gt; of currently observed Sc, but in a hypothetical cleaner world. The first methodology uses a realistic Lagrangian large eddy simulation coupled with satellite observations and provides a process-oriented analysis. The other uses a &lt;span&gt;simple&lt;/span&gt; model and provides a global estimate of the radiative impact. We found that overcast Sc decks would have broken up sooner had they not been influenced by anthropogenic aerosol, thereby causing a significant effective radiative forcing.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p>
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