image: Stratocumulus clouds form large carpets in the sky covering approximately 20% of the earth’s surface. They reflect around 40% of the sun’s radiation back into space. The international research team will investigate the behavior and dynamics of these clouds with respect to climate change to improve climate and weather models.
Credit: © Eberhard Bodenschatz, October 2025 over Central Europe
Clouds play an important role with respect to global climate change by affecting how Earth interacts with sunlight and heat radiation. At the height of around one kilometer, stratocumulus clouds are the most common cloud type, forming carpets in the sky, covering about 20% of Earth’s surface.
These clouds will now be investigated by an interdisciplinary research team from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (Göttingen, Germany), the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). The team has been granted 13.7 million euros by the European Research Council (ERC) over the next six years. The goal of this ERC Synergy project TurPhyCloud – The role or Turbulence in the Physics of Clouds – is to reduce the uncertainty of weather and climate predictions by understanding the physics of stratocumulus clouds.
Turbulent processes at the stratocumulus cloud top affect their entire evolution, right down to precipitation. During the coming six years, the researchers will assess these processes using the well-established CloudKite observatory developed at MPI-DS. The observatory employs a stationary balloon that lifts state of the art instruments weighing 120 kg two kilometers high into the sky, allowing precise measurements of cloud parameters with unprecedented spatial resolution.
“In particular, we are interested in the upper part of the cloud which is mostly affected by radiation from the sun as well as evaporation and where physical dynamics are only understood to some extend”, explains Eberhard Bodenschatz, director at MPI-DS and coordinator of TurPhyCloud. In addition, a fleet of research drones from TU Delft will be used for continuous measurements of wind, temperature, humidity, and pressure in and around the clouds.
The researchers will gather atmospheric data from local stratocumulus clouds in the Baltic Sea. Using these field measurements, they will develop models for turbulent processes in stratocumulus clouds, which will be validated by further measurements. By combining numerical approaches and model calculations, the team aims to create a simulation tool that can be incorporated in current weather and climate models.
“One of the greatest challenges in climate science is predicting the behavior of clouds, which have a major impact on the rate of global warming,” summarizes Bodenschatz. “I’m convinced that understanding the physics of stratocumulus clouds will make it possible to improve current weather and climate models.”
About the ERC Synergy Grant
The Synergy Grant awarded by the European Research Council is given annually to interdisciplinary teams of 2-4 research groups who work together on complex questions that cannot be solved by a single team. The project must demonstrate high research quality as well as synergy effects making collaboration between the researchers essential. The grant is open to all fields of research and provided for six years with a maximum funding volume of 14 million euros.
In 2025, more than 700 proposals for ERC synergy grants have been submitted out of which 48 received funding.