This talk is presented as a Zoom Webinar and requires a passcode. For anyone outside the department; If you would like to attend, email ggk2@psu.edu

Susan C. van den Heever
Department of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO

Cold pools play a fundamental role in convective storm initiation, organization, and longevity. Enhancing our understanding of the physical processes governing cold pool formation, intensity and dissipation, as well as their representation within numerical weather prediction through global climate models, is therefore critical. Cold pool formation processes are influenced by the microphysical characteristics of the storms producing them, including the amount of precipitation produced and drop size distributions. Cold pool dissipation on the other hand is impacted by land surface processes, including sensible and latent heating, as well as turbulent mixing. Environmental properties such as static stability, relative humidity, and vertical wind shear impact both cold pool formation and dissipation. In this seminar, several different cold pool processes will be examined through the use of observations from two recent field campaigns, as well as high resolution large eddy simulations. The impacts of the environment on these cold pool processes, as well as cold pool feedbacks to storm organization, will also be presented. Implications of the results for the representation of cold pools within numerical models will be considered.