Allison McComiskey, aerosol-cloud interactions

Allison McComiskey was hired part-time, to assist with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurements project. In a short time, her role evolved to leading the team’s observational effort in the field of aerosol-cloud interactions and their impacts on climate change. The impacts of such interactions are listed as the single largest unknown in climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007). She collated and integrated data sets from 12 instruments based on a six-month deployment of the DOE/ARM mobile facility. She performed a variety of innovative analysis methods to reveal new results, and published these new techniques to further the progress in this crucial area. Her innovative analysis methods reveal exciting new results enabling them to quantify the effect of aerosol on cloud drop size and albedo, and the implications for climate change; her radiative transfer modeling explores the extent to which current biases in measurements of aerosol effects on cloud albedo have biased GCM model predictions of this effect. These techniques lead the way for similar studies at other locations, furthering progress towards better understanding the impact of aerosol-cloud interaction mentioned in the IPCC. In addition to the contributions to research in the workplace, she is an active member of the CIRES Members’ Council, also pursuing some studies at CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.