2011 Gordon Research Conference on Radiation and Climate; Waterville, Maine; July 10 - 15, 2011

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This grant supports the seventh Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on radiation and climate, scheduled for July 10-15 in Waterville, Maine. GRCs are organized by a non-profit organization which originated at Johns Hopkins Univesrity, in collaboration with the convener of the particular conference, and follow a format which is designed to maximize the time alloted for informal discussion and interaction. The goal of this Radiation and Climate GRC is to bring together researchers working in the fields of in-situ and remote sensing observational techniques, synthesis of observational datasets, and numerical modeling across a wide range of scales, to address critical outstanding issues of cloud-climate interactions. The 2011 GRC on Radiation and Climate will present cutting-edge research on outstanding issues in climate change, particularly those in which the interactions between clouds, aerosols, and precipitation play a major role. Specific topics covered at the conference include: understanding clouds, aerosols and feedbacks from observations and process models; the fast physics revolution in the study of cloud feedbacks; aerosol heating effects on clouds; aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions; the use of polarization to determine cloud and aerosol properties; aerosol retrievals from space in a cloudy world; and the future of cloud remote sensing. The GRC will be accompanied by a Gordon Research Seminar which is a student-led (and primarily student participatory) mini GRC-style symposium that takes place on ahead of the GRC. Most of the expected 30-50 students attending the GRS will also attend the GRC.The GRC will have broader impacts by encouraging the exchange of ideas between early-career scientists and prominent experts in the field. The meeting is expected to be well attended by graduate students and early-career scientists, following the precedent of the 2009 GRC on Radiation and Climate. At that meeting over 40% of the 110 attendees were graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and nearly 60% of the participants were in the early stages of their scientific careers.