RUI: Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Mesoscopic Morphology of Ice

该奖项由美国国家科学基金会环境化学科学和物理与动态气象学项目颁发，支持普吉特海湾大学的Steven Neshyba教授和他的学生。他们研究云层中冰晶的表面纹理（“粗糙度”）。这些冰粒在地球天气中起着重要作用。它们影响云层反射和传输阳光的方式。这种粗糙形成的机制还没有得到很好的理解。本课题包括实验和计算。它的目的是对冰的表面特性进行理论描述。本科生以研究人员、论文和演讲的共同作者和合作者的身份参与工作。其他教育影响包括为林肯高中的高中生和教师提供操作扫描电子显微镜的实践经验。所有的研究人员都编写计算机代码来解释产生的图像。Neshyba教授和他的学生一起前往捷克共和国和挪威的合作实验室，帮助他们在国际背景下了解科学。在实验室中，通过在变压扫描电子显微镜下生长，获得了卷云状冰晶的粗糙度特性。分子动力学模拟探讨了在完整的冰层生长周期中冰表面特征的演变。一个粗粒度的冰生长模型将这些分子尺度的模拟扩展到更大的时间和距离尺度。这些结果用于预测与可见光的相互作用，特别是与大气遥感实验有关。冰晶表面形态的预测理论可以通过整合跨多个尺度的冰生长动力学要素来实现。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award from the Environmental Chemical Sciences and Physical and Dynamic Meteorology Programs of NSF supports Professor Steven Neshyba and his students at the University of Puget Sound. They study the surface texture ("roughness") of ice crystals in clouds. These ice particles play a significant role in Earth's weather. They influence how the clouds reflect and transmit sunlight. The mechanism by which such roughness develops is not well understood. This project includes experiments and computation. It aims to develop a theoretical description of the ice surface properties. Undergraduate students participate in the work as researchers, co-authors of papers and presentations, and collaborators. Other educational impacts include providing high school students and teachers from Lincoln High School hands-on experiences operating a scanning electron microscope. All of the researchers write computer codes to interpret the resulting images. Professor Neshyba travels with his students to collaborator laboratories in the Czech Republic and Norway helping them to gain an appreciation for science in an international context. In the laboratory, roughness properties of cirrus-like ice crystals are obtained by growing the crystals inside a variable-pressure scanning electron microscope. Molecular dynamics simulations explore the evolution of ice surface characteristics over complete cycles of ice layer growth. A coarse-grained model for ice growth extends the reach of these molecular-scale simulations to much larger time- and distance scales. These results are used to predict interactions with visible light, especially as pertinent to atmospheric remote sensing experiments. A predictive theory of ice crystal surface morphology can be achieved by integrating elements of ice growth dynamics across multiple scales.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.