Feedbacks between Vegetation, Aerosol and Cloud Processes Using Observations and a Unified Regional Climate Model

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The impacts of clouds and aerosols on terrestrial carbon and water cycles and the resultant feedbacks to atmospheric processes are core in understanding land-atmosphere coupling. This project will advance our understanding of vegetation-CO2-aerosol-cloud interactions, and improve the representation of CO2- and aerosol- induced feedbacks within a regional-scale modeling system. This study will use outreach to broaden K-12 education and the inform the public on these important interactions to help us better understand the earth's climate system. This study will merge the existing CSU-RAMS coupled biosphere-atmosphere modeling system (SiB-RAMS) with the cloud-resolving Aerosol-RAMS (that includes direct and indirect effects) to form an integrated, process-based Vegetation-Aerosol-Cloud modeling system (VAC-RAMS). This will allow us to better understand spatial and temporal variability in land surface fluxes of energy, water, and CO2, induced by clouds, aerosols and cloud-aerosol interactions. The study will also identify ecosystem feedbacks that are critical to cloud-aerosol interactions and quantify these feedbacks using VAC-RAMS and observations from a 2007 field campaign. This will allow the investigators to assess the importance of aerosol forcing on clouds through biophysical and biogeochemical pathways.