Isabel L. McCoy

AS Atmospheric Sciences

The 2021 Virtual Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (vOSPP) Award is awarded to Isabel L. McCoy for the poster/PICO entitled:

A synthesis of observations of aerosol-cloud interactions over the pristine, biologically active Southern Ocean and their implications for global climate model predictions (McCoy, I. L.; McCoy, D. T.; Wood, R.; Bretherton, C. S.; Regayre, L.; Watson-Parris, D.; Grosvenor, D. P.; Gettelman, A.; Bardeen, C. G.; Mulcahy, J. P.; Hu, Y.; Bender, F. A.-M.; Field P. R.; Carslaw, K. S.; Gordon, H.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Isabel McCoy recently completed her Atmospheric Science PhD at the University of Washington where she worked with Drs. Robert Wood and Christopher Bretherton on understanding the role of ocean biology in aerosol-cloud interactions (aci) in the Southern Ocean (SO) and, by extension, in pre-industrial environments. Using satellite observed cloud droplet number concentrations (a measure of aci), Isabel developed a hemispheric contrast to constrain model predictions of cloud brightening due to increased anthropogenic aerosol emissions from industrialization. She found that models overestimate this change partly due to underestimation of cloud droplet number in pristine environments like the SO. Isabel further used observations from recent aircraft campaigns to examine the aerosol lifecycle of the SO and identify the critical, model-underestimated role that Aitken aerosols (newly formed from synoptically uplifted ocean biology emissions) play in supporting large droplet numbers and substantial cloud brightness in pristine regions. This work is summarized in her EGU 2021 PICO presentation.