An Introduction to Clouds

Ulrike Lohmann is a Professor in the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on the role of clouds and aerosol particles in the climate system, with an emphasis on clouds containing ice. Ulrike has published more than two hundred peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters, and was a lead author of the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She has received many awards, including the Canada Research Chair in 2002, the Henry G. Houghton Award from the American Meteorological Society in 2007, and the Bjerknes Medal from the European Geophysical Union in 2025. She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. She was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Stockholm in 2018. Ulrike has been teaching classes on cloud microphysics and cloud dynamics for more than twenty-five years, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Fabian Mahrt is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at Aarhus University. His research is mostly experimental, measuring physical and chemical properties of aerosol particles, their ability to form clouds and impact their microphysics, in order to understand aerosol-cloud interactions, in both the laboratory and in the field. He teaches courses in atmospheric physics and chemistry for undergraduate and graduate students. Fabian has won several prizes, including the Prix Schläfli in Geoscience in 2021, awarded by the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

• Preface; List of Symbols; 1. Clouds; 2. Atmospheric radiation, energy budget, and optical phenomena; 3. Thermodynamics; 4. Atmospheric dynamics and stability; 5. Mixing and convection; 6. Atmospheric aerosol particles; 7. Cloud droplet formation and K¨ohler theory; 8. Microphysical processes in warm clouds; 9. Microphysical processes in cold clouds; 10. Precipitation; 11. Convective storms and cloud dynamics; 12. Aerosols and clouds in the climate system; 13. Appendix; Index; Acronyms; References.