This event will be in-person and on Zoom.

Eberhard Bodenschatz, Max Planck Institute, Gottingen

Clouds, their precipitation and their albedo not only determine our local living conditions, but also long-term climatic conditions on Earth. Clouds are the most turbulent structures on Earth. The beauty of cumulus clouds comes from the multi-scale mixing by eddies. Turbulence, on the other hand, is considered universal, with long-standing predictions about the scaling of the energy spectrum and the moments of velocity differences in space. Here I will report on our experimental studies of clouds and turbulence - both in the laboratory and in the atmosphere. I will show that clouds are very sharp structures in space and discuss the sling effect, which is thought to be important for upscaling cloud droplet size. Finally, I will present our investigations of a fully developed homogeneous isotropic, but decaying turbulence. With our pressurised turbulence facility, we can achieve the highest turbulence levels of any controlled experiment on Earth and obtain surprising results.

ZOOM INFO: https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/84217234934?pwd=Nk4ya1NLaWVMUVJLMEllcHJzQmRkdz09