ABSTRACT

Clouds are a large contributor to Earth's radiation budget and to uncertainty in future climate projections. This seminar will focus on mixed-phase clouds -- clouds that consist of a mixture of both supercooled liquid droplets and ice crystals. These clouds are ubiquitous, particularly in Earth's polar regions. In this talk, I will discuss how satellite observations of the past and present help us better model these clouds and understand how they evolve in response to climate change. Current challenges associated with observing these clouds as well as representing them in large-scale climate models used for climate projections are highlighted and the path forward to better observing, modelling and predicting these clouds is presented.

About the Speaker:

Ivy Tan is an Assistant Professor at McGill University. Prior to that, she was a researcher at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the Climate and Radiation Laboratory (Code 613) through the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the NASA Postdoctoral Program. She received her Ph.D. at Yale University in 2016. Her research applies remote sensing observations and climate models to better understand the role of cloud microphysical processes in large-scale climate change, with a focus on the Arctic.