Presidential Young Investigator Award

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This is a Presidential Young Investigator Award to Professor Christopher Bretherton of the University of Washington. Professor Bretherton's primary research interest is in hydrodynamic instability theory as applied to convection and in techniques for understanding complex and chaotic geophysical fluid systems, particularly those in which dispersive waves play an important role. He has conducted research on cumulus clouds in the atmosphere using linear models in which clouds are simply treated as sources of heat as well as nonlinear perturbation theory to show how internal gravity waves help organize a field of clouds and to determine how the horizontal mean properties of the convecting layer are modified by the clouds in it. In the coming years Professor Bretherton will continue his research on several important topics in atmospheric convection. One topic is the role of cloud-top entrainment instability in the maintenance and breakup of marine stratocumulus clouds; this is important since marine stratocumulus covers a significant portion (nearly 25%) of the world's oceans. A second topic is to investigate the horizontally averaged properties of fields of deep cumulus clouds and their response to changes in convective forcing; this can address basic issues in atmospheric chemistry, such as how fast chemical constituents from the boundary layer become homogenized throughout the troposphere and get into the stratosphere. Professor Bretherton will also examine the interplay between gravity waves and convection.