New research helps crack the mystery of clouds to improve climate prediction

New research on air-sea interactions can uncover cloud mysteries. Credit: NOAA

NOAA and partner research on clouds and air-sea interactions will help improve a new generation of models that predict our weather and climate, according to a new summary article that is part of a special issue of the open access journal Earth System Science Data.

“Many climate models differ in how they characterize the key impact of shallow cumulus clouds in the tropics on the Earth’s warming,” said Chris Fairall, a researcher at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Lab who took part in EUREC4A, the European-led field campaign that included NOAA’s Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC). “The research modelers now have the most extensive data ever collected on clouds in the climate system to better characterize clouds and a range of air-sea interactions that affect climate.”

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