CLIMATE AND EARTH
SYSTEM SCIENCES
Photo: UHH/Denstorf
9 June 2022
Photo: private
We are proud to announce the successful MSc thesis presentation of our SICSS member Isaac Gyau Baffour
His thesis "Impacts Of Hemispheric Surface Asymmetries On The Earth's Albedo Symmetry" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Bjorn Stevens, Dr. George Datseris and Dr. Hauke Schmidt
Isaac investigated the observed hemispheric symmetry in the Earth's albedo, using aqua-planet simulations from the Icosahedron Nonhydrostatic (ICON) model at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. He explored the impacts of hemispheric surface albedo and evaporation rate asymmetries on the top-of-atmosphere reflected shortwave irradiance. For each simulation, he investigated how clouds respond to the surface asymmetries introduced into the model. He showed that when the surface albedo is increased in the north and decreased in the south, to create hemispheric asymmetries in surface albedo, tropical clouds and the ITCZ shifts into the southern hemisphere to compensate for the asymmetries in clear-sky albedo. And when the evaporation rate in the northern hemisphere is reduced, to generate hemispheric asymmetry in evaporation rate, the less evaporating hemisphere (north) becomes brighter than the more evaporating hemisphere (south). He found that this was due to the north becoming warmer as a result of reduced latent heat flux and transport of water vapour from the more evaporating hemisphere into the less evaporating hemisphere making the north more humid and cloudier than the southern hemisphere.
Isaac's future plans?
He wants to pursue a PhD and/or work in the field of climate modeling and/or climate engineering.