Juliet Pilewskie in New York City hopes her work will eventually contribute to a United Nations’ IPCC Assessment Report. (Credit: Courtesy of Juliet Pilewskie)
Do Clouds Contribute to Climate Change? This Scientist Wants to Find Out
At Columbia University, Juliet Pilewskie is studying how clouds and the environment exchange energy, a longtime mystery.
Editor’s note: Meet all five winners of our 2024 Women In Science Incentive Prize here.
For climate scientist Juliet Pilewskie in New York City, making breakthroughs in understanding severe storms requires creativity and community. In collaboration with researchers around the world, she studies storm systems and how they are changing over time, to increase certainty in climate models. Better data on how the climate is shifting are critical to assessing risk, engaging the public and developing targeted climate policy.
Growing up out West, STEM subjects were highly regarded in Pilewskie’s household, and she was deeply influenced by her mother, who is an economist, and her father, an atmospheric scientist at University of Colorado Boulder. But she also brought a mind filled with imagination to the scientific fields.“Early on, I took it upon myself to grow a deep appreciation for physics and math,” she says, “and how similar they are to art in how creative one can be.”
After studying physics and planetary science at CU Boulder, Pilewskie decided to pursue a career in atmospheric science. “I had this feeling, this deep need, to apply my interest toward more humanitarian and advocate-focused research,” she says. “And I felt like climate research was where I wanted to go because it incorporates all these different aspects that I was really interested in.”
What her PhD advisor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison calls an “intense passion for research” has prompted Pilewskie to study the largest source of uncertainty in current climate models: how clouds contribute to climate change. That effect is not well understood because the ways in which clouds and the environment exchange energy are also largely a mystery.
In general, climate stability relies on balance between the amount of energy Earth receives and the amount it emits. When that delicate equilibrium is disrupted – meaning that the amount of solar energy coming at the planet is unequal to the amount of energy radiating back into space – Earth’s climate is thrown off-kilter. (The famous “greenhouse effect” is one such imbalance.)
Extreme convective storm systems — the type of severe thunderstorms Pilewskie studies — are essential components of that input/output system, and they play a critical role in the movement of air and water globally. Scientists predict storm system behavior will change due to human-induced climate change, potentially with huge impacts to our daily lives. “It’s really important to quantify how clouds are influencing Earth’s energy based on their properties,” says Pilewskie, now a postdoctoral research scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University.
“I’m using observations to essentially get a quantifiable estimate of how clouds change with surface warming, in order to use that as a basis for evaluating climate models, to see how far off they are,” she says. Pilewskie does that by using multiple types of satellite observations to arrive at a much more detailed understanding of how clouds grow and function in storm systems worldwide.
During her graduate work, Pilewskie was awarded a NASA FINESST (Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology) fellowship, allowing her to probe an archive of more than 100,000 clouds and other weather phenomena. Through those analyses, Pilewskie developed a method for identifying unique objects and, in the process, is chipping away at the mystery of what drives and impacts extreme storms. “I have hope that increased observations and understanding of the processes will be really important for improving predictions and forecasts,” she says.
Pilewskie also hopes her work will eventually contribute to a United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report. “I would be really excited if the work that I’m doing can be put in this document used for policymakers,” she says. Someday, Pilewskie would like to be an educator and science advisor “discussing more locally with people how the Earth is going to change.” Until then, says Pilewskie, “I feel like I’m getting a better understanding of storms on a global scale, which is really cool.” ◼️
