How Do Aerosols Impact Deep Convective Clouds and Severe Weather? (Core Science Keynote)
Deep convective clouds play a crucial role in the atmospheric circulation, energy, and water cycle of our climate system. The extreme form of deep convective clouds produces weather hazards such as large hail, damaging winds, tornadoes, and torrential rainfall, causing significant property damage and economic losses. We have made some progress on the fundamental understanding of how aerosols modify these storms and their associated weather hazards. I will talk about our efforts on exploring the impacts of aerosols on storm intensity, extreme precipitation, and hailstones. I will focus on the understandings gained from process-level studies using both advanced observations and high-resolution model simulations. I will also discuss the challenges in observing and modeling convective storms and the aerosol effect.