Internship Opportunities

Mesoscale Meteorology Group with Prof. Shu-Hua Chen

Interns will work on scientific problems related to 1) dust-cloud-radiation interactions, 2) agricultural irrigation effects on near-surface meteorology and boundary layer height, and 3) research using a variety of meteorological datasets. Along with data collection and manipulation, interns are encouraged to explore and analyze meteorological phenomena from the datasets, even to develop innovative solutions to a challenging, real-world project.

Cloud Physics Group with Prof. Adele Igel

Our group is working on a variety of problems related to clouds and precipitation, their relationship to aerosols, and their representation in weather models. Past and current projects include studying the impacts of aerosols on thunderstorms, the impacts of aerosols on Arctic clouds, the nature of cloud droplet size distributions and their influence on properties of cumulus clouds, the importance of ice crystal properties on mountain snowfall, and the design of cloud microphysics schemes. If these topics sound interesting to you, feel free to send me an email to ask about current internship opportunities. More information about our group and our work can be found at adele.faculty.ucdavis.edu

Convective Atmosphere Group with Prof. Matthew Igel

There are always opportunities available in the group to work with data from various field campaigns conducted in the tropics, data from satellites, or data from cloud resolving models. Recent undergraduate projects have included using soundings from a tropical island to assess the thermodynamic structure of the atmosphere and then relating that understanding to the production of precipitation from tropical thunderstorms, and using a very large suite (>2000) cloud resolving modeling simulations to disentangle the importance of thermodynamics and dynamics on precipitation intensity. Potential projects include using a cloud model to determine the sensitivity of cloud properties to various forces that are usually ignored, using satellites to understand the dependence of precipitation rate on the internal structure of tropical clouds, or anything you’re really interested in related to clouds or rain.

Global Environmental Change Research Group with Prof. Erwan Monier

Our group conducts research to inform decision-makers on challenges relating to global environmental change. Our research articulates around three dimensions: • climate change impacts • climate change and extreme events • human and Earth system interactions

Examples of internship projects include: Analyze climate model output to identify how climate change will modify the frequency, magnitude and characteristics of extreme weather events in California and around the US • Examine historical weather data to identify meteorological conditions associated with major wildfire events in California and other US region

Let’s work together to build a project you feel passionate about!!!

Photography and Atmospheric Science with Prof. Terry Nathan

In atmospheric science, photographic imagery has evolved from simple ground-based documentation of local weather phenomena in the nineteenth century to the global depiction of circulations and radiation using space-based platforms today. This project explores the symbiotic and historical relationship that has existed between photography and atmospheric science for 180 years. Photography and its application to atmospheric science will be examined within the context of lightning, clouds, precipitation, severe weather, and climate change. Tasks The internship tasks will include obtaining original research papers on topics dealing with the intersection between photography and atmospheric science, and providing brief annotated bibliographies of the papers.