Greg McFarquhar University of Illinois
Professor Greg McFarquhar Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Illinois 105 S. Gregory Street Urbana, IL 61801-3070 PH: 217-265-5458 FX: 217-244-4393 Email: mcfarq at illinois.edu
|
Picture of the Month: Check back each month for a new picture about our group's activities. This month, Dr. Greg McFarquhar is seen overlooking the town of Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Dr. McFarquhar attended the First Science meeting of the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotedly piloted aircraft at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. It is hoped that unmanned aerospace vehicles will be used in the research group in the near future, complimenting current field studies being conducted with piloted aircraft.
|
 |
Recent Publication: McFarquhar, G.M., J. Um, and R. Jackson, 2013: Small particle shape in mixed-phase clouds. J. Appl. Meteor. Clim., In press. - this paper, to be published in early 2013 and written using funding from DOE ASR program, describes how high-resolution images of cloud particles with maximum dimensions smaller than 100 micrometers can be used to determine the phase of clouds. |
Greg McFarquhar received his B.Sc. in mathematics and physics from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1987. Thereafter, he changed his field of study to atmospheric sciences and received his M.Sc. (1989) and Ph.D. (1993) from the University of Toronto, specializing in cloud physics. Greg spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California (1993-94) and worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado (1995-2001) before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois in the fall of 2001. He is the outgoing chair of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Cloud Physics and a member of the International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation. He is an associate editor for the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society and the Journal of Climate, and has active research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He has formerly served as Chair of the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Cloud properties working group, and has been Chief Scientist for the ARM Uninhabited Aerospace Vehicle Program (ARM UAV), the ARM Aerial Vehicle Program (AVP) and the ARM Aerial Facilities (AAF). He was formerly a Richard and Margaret Romano Professorial Scholar at the University of Illinois. He has 92 publications in the refereed literature and has made over 300 presentations at conferences and working group meetings. Interested candidates for graduate studies or postdoctoral positions are encouraged to contact him for more information.
The most fundamental and complex problems in climate and weather research today are our poor understandings of the basic properties of clouds and our inability to determine quantitatively the many effects cloud processes have on weather and climate. Current climate models indicate that Earth's average surface temperature will warm from 1.5 to 4.5°C by 2100 due to increases in greenhouse gases, with the large uncertainty attributed to different treatments of clouds in climate models. Winter weather significantly impacts the transportation and power industries, schools and businesses, and severe thunderstorms can cause significant damage and flooding. Improved quantitative precipitation forecasts require a greater understanding of how cloud processes and the related energy release affect the structure and dynamics of storms. Research within the McFarquhar group addresses the overarching theme of clouds and their relation to climate and weather using a combination of field observations, satellite retrievals and numerical modeling studies.Prof. McFarquhar's work at Illinois aims at making fundamental advances in our understanding of cloud properties and processes, and improving our ability to represent clouds in weather and climate models.
Current projects are advancing our understanding of 1) the microphysical structure of snow bands in winter cyclones; 2) the properties of tropical clouds generated by deep convection; 3) the operating characteristics of probes measuring cloud properties; 4) the transmission of radiation through the cloudy atmosphere; 5) the representation of clouds in climate and weather models; 6) the dependence of arctic cloud properties on aerosol properties; 7) the impact of cloud and aerosol processes on hurricane evolution; and 8) the dependence of fair weather cumuli properties on land-surface and aerosol characteristics. Funding is received from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for this research. In the past few years, my graduate students and I have participated in field projects in Darwin Australia (tropical cirrus), Barrow Alaska (arctic mixed-phase clouds), Ponca City Oklahoma (fair weather cumuli and cirrus), Peoria Illinois (winter storms), and Boulder Colorado (performance of cloud probes). Data collected during these projects are being linked with numerical models having a variety of temporal and spatial scales, including cloud resolving, mesoscale and single column models.
| Hurricanes | Cirrus |
Arctic Clouds | Tropical Clouds |
| Snow Bands | Indirect Effects | Radiation Transmission | Probe Operating Characteristics |
Future modeling and observational studies are being planned for Darwin Australia, Salina Kansas, the Galapagos Islands, and the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. Graduate students and postdoctoral research associates are active collaborators in all projects, presenting their research at conferences and publishing papers in the scientific literature. I am always looking for more students to join my group so that we can improve our knowledge of clouds together.
Current Group
Current Graduate/Undergraduate Students
| Student | Degree |
Topic |
| Duffy, George | M.S. |
Remote sensing of ice clouds |
| Guerrero, Spencer | UG | Characterizing cloud particles as fractals |
| Haapanala, Päivi (Helsinki) | Ph.D. |
Radiative transfer in cirrus clouds |
| Hsieh, Tsung-Lin | UG |
Techniques for fitting size distributions |
| Jackson, Robert | Ph.D. |
Performance of probes measuring ice crystals |
| Keeler, Jason | Ph.D. |
Modeling mid-latitude wintertime cyclones |
| Kim, Sun Kyu | Hourly | Automated identification of ice crystals |
| Macomber, Matt | UG | Frontal structure of mid-latitude cyclones |
| Mascio, Jeana | M.S. |
Ice crystal size distributions in tropical cyclones |
| Norris, Bethany | Ph.D. |
Microphysics in deep nocturnal convective systems |
| Plummer, David | Ph.D. |
Microphysics of snowbands in mid-latitude cyclones |
| Rosenow, Andrew | Ph.D. |
Snowbands in mid-latitude cyclones |
| Silver, Amanda | UG |
Defining rapid intensification of hurricanes |
| Turner, Bill | UG | Icing conditions in mid-latitude cyclones |
| Wu, Wei | Ph.D. |
Representation of ice clouds in climate models |
| Yang, Hee-Jung | Ph.D. |
Indirect effects in trade wind cumuli |
Current Postdocs/Staff/Associates
| Individual | Topic |
| Jewett, Brian | Hurricane and mid-latitude cyclone studies |
| Um, Junshik | Cloud/radiative interactions |
Former Students/Postdocs/Staff
| Student | Degree |
Year | Topic | Current Employer |
| Bae, Kenny | M.S. |
2010 | Microphysics of arctic clouds | GCE High School, Chicago, IL |
| Birky, Josh | UG |
2002-03 | Lidar observations of clouds | University of South Florida, Tampa, FL |
| Dooley, Amanda | M.S. |
2008 | Hurricane cloud microphysics | Rutgers University, Rutgers, NJ |
| Freer, Matt | Staff |
2003-07 | Cloud physics probe processing | DMT, Boulder, CO |
| Grim, Joe | Ph.D. |
2008 | MCS microphysics | NCAR, Boulder, CO |
| Guarente, Bryan | M.S. |
2007 | MCS modeling | NCAR, Boulder, CO |
| Hampton, Justin | M.S. |
2009 | Mid-latitude snowband properties | Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, IL |
| Jackson, Robert | M.S. |
2011 | Indirect effects in ice clouds | University of Illinois, Urbana, IL |
| Kruk, Michael | M.S. |
2005 | Bow echo damage patterns | NOAA, Ashville, NC |
| Maliawco Jr., Richard | M.S. |
2012 | Predictability of tropical cyclones | NWS, Montana |
| Mauno, Päivi | M.S. |
2010 | Radiative transfer in ice clouds (Helsinki) | University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland |
| Nousiainen, Timo | Postdoc | 2002-04 | Scattering from small ice crystals | University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland |
| Peterson, Melissa | M.S. |
2012 | Stability characteristics of wintertime cyclones | |
| Pitcel, Michelle | M.S. |
2010 | Numerical models of gravity waves | University of Illinois, Urbana, IL |
| Rosenow, Andrew | M.S. |
2011 | Snowbands in mid-latitude cyclones | University of Illinois, Urbana, IL |
| Scheff, Jack | UG |
2007-08 | Cloud particles as fractals | University of Washington, Seattle, WA |
| Smith, Andrea | M.S. |
2007 | Microphysics of MCSs | NCAR, Boulder, CO |
| Timlin, Mike | Staff |
2002-06 | Cloud probe analysis | Midwestern Climate Center, Urbana, IL |
| Um, Junshik | M.S. |
2004 | Cloud-radiation interactions | University of Illinois, Urbana, IL |
| Um, Junshik | Ph.D. |
2009 | Tropical cirrus microphysics/radiation | University of Illinois, Urbana, IL |
| Wang, Hailong | Ph.D. |
2007 | Indirect effects in trade wind cumuli | PNNL, Richland, WA |
| Wegman, Joe | M.S. |
2012 | Electrification of winter storms | |
| Weingartner, Fiona | HS |
2010 | History of cloud physics | |
| Yaffe, Kyle | UG | 2013 | Automated identification of ice crystals | Scott Air Force Base, Pasquotah, IL |
| Zhang, Henian | M.S. |
2004 | Models of hurricane microphysics | Georgia Dept. of Transport, Atlanta, GA |
| Zhang, Henian | Ph.D. |
2008 | Saharan dust impacts on hurricanes | Georgia Dept. of Transport, Atlanta, GA |