Below is the transcript of our conversation with Dr. Jason Keeler:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. Cooler air, warmer air. How much moisture in that air? What makes for a thunderstorm? Dr. Jason Keeler is an Assistant Professor in CMU's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science. In July, he will lead a team of research students along with drones, over 600 weather balloons, 2 mobile radars and six weather stations to the shore of Lake Michigan. I'm not going, but I did learn a lot more about thunderstorm formation.
Jason Keeler:
We like to think of cooler air as being less conducive to thunderstorms in general, and so you think that maybe near the lake you might expect less storms, but there's this transition from over the lake where the air is cooler to inland, where the air is progressively warmer and warmer, and we refer to that transition from cooler and what we would call stable to warmer and less stable, we'd call that destabilization. And so, a lot of what I study is looking at that process of destabilization and you know how the initial state of air over the lake affects that. And how other processes in the local area could affect?
DN:
What about the geography or topography of West Michigan, in combination with Lake Michigan and the destabilization that you just described? What impact do you think there may be? What impact are you already seeing and want to confirm through further study?
JK:
So, there's a few things that I'm really focused in on through Mitten-CI, one of them being which side of what we call the Lake Breeze front has more instability. I mentioned before that normally you would think cooler air, you know, less unstable, less conducive to storms. But there's certain conditions and this is absolutely not the typical evolution, but there's some cases where air that is slightly cooler could actually be more unstable, provided there's a lot more moisture in that cooler air. And so, this is something that to me as a scientist is exciting because it's completely counterintuitive. That if you're on the cool side of the front, that there might be more instability. So having something like a lake there, that local geography that's allowing you to have these lake breezes that set up on most days provides and to me an ideal lab to study how you could get that condition of there being slightly greater even sometimes much greater instability on the cool side of the front.
DN:
Because I'm (I'm) just trying to understand a little bit more about that amount of moisture and the formation in and around what we would think of as destabilized and how, what I what I'm (I'm) getting and (and) correct me if I'm wrong, is that you're seeing factors that for lack of a better term shouldn't necessarily be doing what they're doing. And yet, they are?
JK:
And so let me take a (a) step back. Just thinking about what instability even means. I know it's a term that we hear a lot but isn't always described. And so, what I would consider or what's (what's) considered an unstable what we call parcel of air is, if you could lift that parcel of air, there is that air parcel’s temperature going to be warmer than its surroundings are cooler than its surroundings, and so if that parcel is lifted and it's warmer than its surroundings, then it's able to continue accelerating up. It's rising faster and faster and could become a thunderstorm. And so, temperature is absolutely a critical part of that. But the moisture content of air can also affect its temperature, because if you have more moisture, you're going to have more condensation eventually, which gives off. Think of it as being the opposite of when you get out of a pool or get out of water and (and) the water is evaporating off of you and you feel cool. If that water vapor is condensing, it's making that parcel of air warmer. And so that's why moisture is very important and not always thought about as much as it should be when considering the amount of instability that's there. And so, if we have more moisture in that air and it's slightly cooler, it could be more unstable and more conducive to storms. And that air further inland that's warmer but not as moist.
DN:
Well, this looks ahead to the month of July, when the research will be done. The data collection will be done and the information that will answer some questions about the dynamics of thunderstorm formation. Doctor Jason Keeler, Earth and atmosphere, Atmospheric Sciences Assistant Professor here at Central Michigan University. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
JK:
Well, thank you for having me.
