Research Accomplishments

2009

Lead in Clouds: A Bad News/Good News Scenario
An international research team led by PNNL's Dr. Daniel Cziczo has shown for the first time that lead from human activities is changing the properties of clouds and, therefore, the way the sun's energy affects the atmosphere. Published in Nature Geoscience. More...
Thawing the Mystery of Extra Ice Crystals
Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have presented two processes, or explanations, for how extra ice crystals form in mixed-phase clouds—clouds containing both water and ice—which are prevalent throughout the Arctic. Now, the scientific community has a more accurate understanding of how Arctic clouds affect climate change. More...

Seeking and Destroying Algorithm Errors
Drs. Richard Easter and Mikhail Ovtchinnikov found and corrected previously unrecognized errors of up to 30% in advection algorithms, enabling detailed cloud-model simulations that are much more accurate. More...