Utah group goes storm-chasing in Australia

TWP ICE scientists and researchers based in Darwin, Australia, tracked storms by air, sea and land using an elaborate network of satellite technology, computers and manpower. Northern Australia's monsoon season is January and February, providing ideal conditions for daily exposure to high level cloud formations.

"Our focus is to understand how high-level clouds, cirrus clouds, impact the climate system. Global warming is the climate change we're the most worried about," Mace said. "We are in the process of doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere since the Industrial Age began. The cause is the burning of fossil fuels, and it is significant because it is drastically changing the composition of the atmosphere."

The relationship between clouds and global warming is the subject of ongoing research. Because clouds are known to impact the temperature on any given day in any given spot on the globe, TWP ICE organizers have spent years plotting this experiment so they can provide meteorologists better tools for understanding what causes clouds to form when — and ultimately, how they may play a role in global warming.

Cirrus clouds get the most attention because it is primarily these upper-level clouds that control how much heat, or energy, escapes to space.

"Cirrus clouds are like a blanket. They trap heat in the system. That energy has to escape somehow. If enough energy is trapped and stored in the system, it can escape from the tropical ocean in the form of a hurricane, or in a big rain event like a 'Pineapple Express,' which is a deep flow of moisture in the tropics like we recently had hit the East Coast," Mace said.

Or, more typically, that energy escapes in little-noticed, daily weather events.

During the experiment, Zipser's job is to help specialized pilots safely fly the storms, getting close enough to gather real-time data within a cloud's fleeting life span, but not so close they risk being swallowed by the storm.

Meanwhile, student researchers like Cohen launched multiple weather balloons daily from land and sea, to gather corresponding air temperature, humidity, wind direction and wind speed data needed for scientists to pinpoint precise conditions at the time the storms are generated.

Cohen also did education outreach, in addition to her research duties during the experiment. Toward the end of TWP ICE, she toured classrooms in Australia with updates on the experiment. She also used cyberspace to link Australian students with Utah classrooms.

Participating schools include Park View Elementary and Bryant Middle School.

"What happens in this part of the world absolutely affects what happens in another part," Mace said.

That's something scientists know definitively.

"Take El Nino, for example. The western Pacific is extremely warm. When that warm water shifts into the cooler central Pacific, it causes big thunderstorms. So those thunderstorms in Darwin, for example, shift to the Central Pacific. In a very real sense, El Nino 'steals Darwin's thunder.' It could cause a dry spell or even drought in Darwin. In Utah, and the Western United States, a strong El Nino means a rainier period in the south and a dryer period in the north. It's all part of balancing out the energy in the earth's atmosphere."

TWP ICE could bring scientists one step closer to understanding how best mankind can care for the ever-changing atmosphere. And for the U. of U. team participating in the experiment, storm chasing Down Under was a chance to show Utah's commitment to helping solve the world's meteorological mysteries.

"We're proud to be part of this," Zipser said. "We get to educate our graduate students. We get to produce the next generation of researchers and professors. We're looking after the future of our field."