Clouds, Aerosols, Wildfires, and Extreme Heat - From Physical Processes to Climate Impacts
Date: Friday 3 July 2026
Time: 10:30 to 11:30 BST
Venue: Room 640, City and Guilds Building, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø
Abstract: Professor Diao will present work on ice and mixed-phase cloud microphysics and aerosol-cloud interactions at near-global scale, drawing on more than 20 field campaigns spanning the polar regions, midlatitudes, and tropics. She will discuss scale-aware comparisons between multi-scale observations (aircraft, ship, ground, and satellite) and several Earth system models, as well as hemispheric asymmetries in cloud microphysical properties and the tendency of models to underestimate aerosol impacts on ice clouds. The talk will close with work on regional climate impacts in California, including wildfire risk and extreme heat, using a regionally refined model and machine learning.
About the speaker: Professor Diao is a Full Professor in the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University. She serves on the National Academy of Sciences Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and is an editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
The talk will be held in person in Room 640, City and Guilds Building, South Kensington Campus, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, and will also be available online via livestream.
Please register via the link below.