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Aerosols, Convection, Clouds, and Climate Sensitivity: understanding the processes and climate impacts of the interactions between aerosol pollution and tropical convective clouds

Project description

Understanding aerosol-cloud interactions

Aerosol-cloud interactions are a major source of uncertainty in historical climate radiative forcing. While the effects of aerosols on tropical deep convective clouds are significant, they remain poorly understood. Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasise these gaps as critical research priorities. The ERC-funded AC3S project will use advanced observational and modelling techniques to explore aerosol-cloud interactions and climate science. It will analyse satellite observations, in-situ aircraft measurements, and high-resolution simulations to examine how aerosols influence tropical deep convective clouds. It will then assess the global climate impacts of these interactions and evaluate their implications for Earth’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide and future global warming. The findings will contribute to future IPCC reports.

Objective

Interactions between anthropogenic aerosol particles and clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in the historical radiative forcing of climate. Aerosol effects on tropical deep convective clouds could constitute a major component of this forcing, but the underlying physical mechanisms are poorly understood, and the associated global climate forcing has not been rigorously quantified before. These knowledge gaps have been highlighted as an urgent research challenge in recent assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the World Climate Research Programme. AC3S seeks to address this challenge by applying state-of-the-art observational and modeling techniques that span the disciplines of aerosol-cloud interactions and climate science. First, I will perform regional analysis of satellite observations, in-situ aircraft measurements, and high-resolution numerical simulations to investigate hypotheses about the physical mechanisms that govern the interactions between aerosols and tropical deep convective clouds. Second, I will analyze global satellite observations to attain the first rigorous assessment of global climate forcing from these aerosol-cloud interactions. Finally, I will synthesize the evidence and quantify the implications of the results for Earth’s climate sensitivity to carbon-dioxide forcing and 21st century global warming. This integrated approach will advance the field of aerosol-cloud-climate interactions and ensure that the results are immediately accessible to a broad audience, including policymakers and future IPCC assessment reports.

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG

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Host institution

STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 830 134,00
Address
UNIVERSITETSVAGEN 10
10691 Stockholm
Sweden

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Region
Östra Sverige Stockholm Stockholms län
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 830 134,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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