The van den Heever Group
Convective Storms
Microphysics and Aerosols
Cold Pools
INCUS
Drones
RAMS Model
tobac
Research News
Controls on Congestus
A new paper led by Bee found that midlevel moisture is the most important factor in determining which congestus continue to develop into deeper convection.
Aerosol Breezes
In a recently published paper, Bee demonstrated how a circulation can be driven by differences in heating due to an aerosol gradient. This phenomenon was termed an “aerosol breeze.”
Group News
2023
April 22: Bee, Ben, Christine, Nick, Charles, and Jennie all participate in the Little Shop of Physics, along with many other volunteers from Atmospheric Science. We used fun demos to introduce our science to K-12 students.
April 21: Bee receives the Herbert Riehl Memorial Award for her paper “Aerosol breezes drive cloud and precipitation increases” recently published in Nature Communications. The Riehl award is given by the department to a masters or early-PhD student who submits the best manuscript for publication in the past 18 months. Bee's research showed how a mesoscale gradient in aerosol could drive a circulation similar to a sea-breeze. Congratulations Bee for receiving this well-earned honor!
March 10: Jennie Bukowski, who received her PhD from the van den Heever group in 2021, re-joins the group as a postdoctoral scholar working on INCUS. Jennie was working as a joint postdoc for UCLA and NCAR. Welcome back to the group Jennie!
February 20: Randy Chase joins the group as a research scientist working on INCUS. Randy joins us from OU where he worked as a postdoc. Welcome to the group Randy!
Febuary 2: Christine wins an Outstanding Student Presentation Award for her talk "Transport and Mixing of Bioaerosols by Successive Cold Pools" given at the 103rd AMS Annual Meeting this January. Christine ran idealized simulations of a squall line case our group observed during BACS-I last year. She found that background aerosols were distributed the most by the passage of an initial cold pool, while aerosols emitted after that initial cold pool can be lofted higher by a succeeding cold pool. Congratulations Christine on this well earned honor!
Febuary 2: Atmospheric science students, including BACS team members Bee, Allie Mazurek from the Schumacher group, and Daniel Veloso-Águila from the Maloney and Rasmussen groups, did an outreach event at AXIS International Academy. Kindergarteners in a Spanish language immersion class got to hear (en español) about extreme weather, climate, and how we use our drones to make measurements in the field!
January 17: Itinderjot (IT) Singh joins the group as a postdoc working on INCUS. IT joins us from Russ Schumacher's group. Welcome to the group IT!