The climate models that scientists use to understand and project climate change are improving constantly, with better representations of the oceans, ice, land surfaces and other factors in the atmosphere. While there is still some degree of uncertainty in all these components, the largest source of uncertainty in today’s climate models are clouds.
Clouds can both cool the planet, by acting as a shield against the sun, and warm the planet, by trapping heat. But why do clouds behave the way they do? And how will a warming planet affect the cloud cover?
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist David Romps has made it his mission to answer these questions. His work involves the development of cloud resolution models on a dedicated 336-core Dell cluster and the Lab’s Lawrencium cluster – both managed by the IT Division’s High Performances Services Group. More…