CIF: Making the Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber Available to the Community for Aerosol-Cloud-Turbulence Research

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This Community Instruments and Facilities (CIF) award is for support of the Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber at Michigan Technological University. This project will make the Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber and an extensive set of supporting instrumentation available to the atmospheric sciences community for investigations of atmospheric processes that include aerosols and clouds. The Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber is designed to simulate cloud conditions within the range of pressures and temperatures that occur in the lower part of the atmosphere (the troposphere). It is the only operating major laboratory cloud chamber for research use in North America. The award will also support a 10-week experiential learning program for visiting students through a Chamber laboratory fellowship program and broaden student participation in the physical sciences. The Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber has a proven record of enabling productive and insightful research in aerosol-cloud interactions, ice nucleation and mixed-phase cloud properties, cloud optical properties, and moist Rayleigh-Bénard convection. The Pi Chamber and supporting instruments make a facility that enables measurement of thermodynamics, turbulence, aerosol, and cloud properties for research in the atmospheric sciences. This award will enhance the ability of the broader scientific community to request and use the Pi Cloud Chamber for research through the Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences facility request process.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.