Dr Paul Connolly

I graduated from UMIST in 2001 gaining a 1st class degree in Pure and Applied Physics, awarded course prize for best performance in all three years.

At the start of 2006 I gained my PhD at UMIST, which investigated the impacts that particulate pollution can have on a tropical cumulo-nimbus (Cb) known as Hector. The work found that there may be optimal amounts of pollution that could increase the frequency of upper level cloudiness in the tropics.I find this interesting as it is related to the area of geoengineering in stratus clouds where we believe that the effect is that increased aerosol concentrations result in more reflective clouds. If m modelling results for tropical cumulo-nimbus clouds are correct then it suggests that if they form in polluted regions the clouds would become less reflective and hence have a warming effect on the planet. This idea is now receiving wider recognition and is now becoming recognised as an important indirect effect of aerosols on clouds. More recently my research has shown that aerosols do indeed significantly affect such strong convection.

Throughout my PhD I took part in numerous field projects, which involved measing high level cirrus outflow in Darwin, Australia; measuring aerosol-cloud interactions on the Jungfraujoch; understanding ice nucleation in a state-of-the-art laboratory facility in Germany; and measuring ice in cumulus clouds from the FAAM BAe-146 research aircraft. In 2004, I visited the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, which served to strengthen my interests in understanding ice processes in clouds.

In 2006 I took up the position of lecturer in SEAES and am currently teaching earth and environmental scientists problem solving skills (EART10160), statistics and computer data analysis (EART20170), and supervise several third year projects each year (EART30300).I also teach third year physics undergraduates on the Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics module (EART30351). Another role I have recently taken on in the department is admissions officer for Environmental Science, I will be learning what this role entails as time goes by!

Since joining SEAES I have become involved in the construction of a large cylindrical cloud chamber known as  MICC (the Manchester Ice Cloud Chamber). This is situated on three floors of the Simon Building and is currently being used to investigate the formation of airborne snow crystals. We do this by artificially producing a cloud and seeding it with ice crystals. Techniques are being developed to record the growth rates of an ice crystal population with time by vapour deposition, aggregation and riming (accretion of liquid drops onto the ice).  This new and exciting experimental set-up is available for environmental students to use to investigate cloud processes as part of their project work in the third year.We recently published a paper that used the chamber to quantify the aggregation efficiency of ice crystals.

I am also very interested in understanding how efficient certain minerals are at nucleating ice from supercooled water. Contrary to popular belief, ice does not form from pure water once the temperature is colder than 0 C. It requires an energy barrier for crystallisation to be overcome. Infact, in pure water this will not happen until temperatures are colder than -35C. However, certain minerals that are present in the earth's atmosphere can decrease the height of this energy barrier and so can nucleate ice at much warmer temperatures. Understanding how this happens, and how this impacts on precipitation is a key area of interest in my work.

Hobbies of mine include athletics (running), and I regularly take part in cross country, road races and track races. In the autumn and winter I run cross country (and kind of dread it to be honest, but its a kind of painful pleasure), whereas in the late winter and spring I run road races (I usually line up for the Bupa Manchester 10K in May) and after that I concentrate on track running for the rest of the summer. I train at Salford Mets Athletics Club (the running club thats actually in Salford, unlike the other club that call themselves Salford!), which tends towards the middle distances, but occasionally take part in longer distance races. I also enjoy cycling (but not so much around Manchester because of the poor cycle paths and roads!).

 

Cloud physics and aerosols, ice nucleation, numerical modelling, microphysics

Modules Supervised

• [EART 10160] Introductory Scientific Concepts & Scientific Modelling

Modules Taught

• [EART 20170] Computing, Data Analysis & Communication Skills
• [EART 30300] Independent Project (Environmental Science/Studies)
• [EART 30351] Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics

• Connolly, P. , G. Vaughan , P.T. May , C. Chemel , G. Allen , T. W. Choularton, M. W. Gallagher , K. N. Bower , J. Crosier , C. Dearden, 2011, Can aerosols influence deep tropical convection? Aerosol indirect effects in the Hector island thunderstorm, submitted to Quarterly Journal of the Royal Met Soc.