Branco Weiss Fellow Since
2018
Research Category
Atmospheric Sciences
Research Location
Department Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands
Background
Clouds in the sky exhibit a variety of forms and patterns. Their complexity not only puzzles the casual observer but also poses a significant scientific challenge. Clouds, especially those over the subtropical oceans, can be considered the largest uncertainty of current climate projections. The problem behind the cloud-related uncertainty lies in limited computational resources: The adequate numerical modeling of subtropical clouds currently requires resolutions as fine as tens of meters. Even the fastest supercomputers, however, do not allow us to perform climate projections that resolve horizontal scales finer than about 100 km. Despite rapid technological advances, this mismatch between the scales of cloud and climate modeling will not be resolved by increasing computing power within the next decades. New ways[nbsp]– at the same time adequate and efficient – of representing clouds in climate models are therefore required to timely provide policy makers with better climate projections.
Details of Research
In her research, Dr. Franziska Glassmeier approaches the problem of representing clouds in climate simulations from a new perspective. Instead of focusing on the detailed processes that affect individual clouds and that cannot be represented due to computational limitations, she will explore the collective behavior of clouds fields on scales that can be captured in climate models. The essential idea behind this change of perspective lies in the observation that the complexity of small-scale process detail often assembles into an effective, or emergent, behavior on the system-wide scale. Applying a range of concepts and methods from complex-systems theory and non-equilibrium thermodynamics to observations and detailed simulations, Dr. Franziska Glassmeier systematically studies the emergent behavior of climatically relevant cloud types. She especially focuses on the emergence of specific spatial arrangements and patterns in cloud fields. Dr. Glassmeier's goal is to explore the potential of emergent behavior in cloud systems as a new strategy for improving the representation of clouds in climate models.
