British Antarctic Survey’s Twin Otter aircraft takes to the skies over Barbados as part of a major international research campaign to enhance understanding of the behaviour of clouds and their role in climate change.
The five-week field study will shed light on how tropical clouds respond to global warming. The team, including scientists from the UK, Germany, France, and the United States, will measure the interactions between clouds, convection, atmospheric circulation and climate. The project will change the way these cloud processes are represented in climate models.
The campaign is part of the EUREC4A project (Elucidating the Role of Clouds-Circulation Coupling in Climate) and involves more than 40 partner institutions, the deployment of five research aircraft, four research vessels, ground-based remote sensing and satellite remote sensing in the east and south of the Caribbean island of Barbados.
A science team will fly into clouds to make detailed measurements that will help them understand how shallow trade-wind clouds form and evolve.
Read more at British Antarctic Survey
Image: BAS Twin Otter aircraft flying over the Antarctic Peninsula near Rothera Research Station. (Credit: British Antarctic Survey)