Floortje Van Den Heuvel

Cloud Physicist

Floortje Van Den Heuvel

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Floortje Van Den Heuvel

Biography

Cloud Physicist for Southern Ocean Clouds project, 2020 to present.

UK Polar Network committee member, 2020 to present.

Editorial board SESS report,  SIOS, 2019-2020.

PhD, polarimetric weather radar, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) & MeteoSwiss, 2015 – 2019

Internship, MeteoSwiss and WMO SPICE project, 2014-2015.

MSc, Environmental Sciences, Université de Genève, 2011-2014.

Research interests

I work within the Southern Ocean Clouds project which is part of the overarching CloudSense project. The aim is to improve the representation of mixed phase clouds over the Southern Ocean in climate models. The Southern Ocean is the area in the world where climate models show the largest biases in surface radiation and sea surface temperature. These biases are thought to be related to errors in the representation of mixed phase clouds in models. We are therefore investigating the source and composition of cloud forming nuclei responsible for the formation of these clouds, as well as the cloud microphysical processes (such as secondary ice production) that are important for mixed phase clouds. Over the course of the project we will be increasing the observations of the various types and sources of aerosol in this region which can act as cloud forming nuclei. This observational data will be used to validate and improve models of aerosol production over the Southern Ocean.

Collaborations

2020

  • van den Heuvel, F. Hübner C., Blaszczyk M., Heimann M., Lihavainen H. (eds): State of Environmental Science in Svalbard report 2019, Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System, Longyearbyen.
  • van den Heuvel, F., Foresti L., Gabella, M., Germann U., and Berne, A: Learning about the vertical structure of radar reflectivity using hydrometeor classes and neural networks in the Swiss Alps. Atmos. Meas. Tech. 13, 2481-2500, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2481-2020, 2020.

2018

  • van den Heuvel, F., Gabella, M., Germann, U., and Berne, A.: Characterisation of the melting layer variability in an Alpine valley based on polarimetric X-band radar scans, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5181-5198, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5181-2018, 2018.
  • Nitu et al.: WMO Solid Precipitation Intercomparison Experiment (SPICE) (2012-2015), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), IOM Report-No.131, https://library.wmo.int/doc num.php?explnum id=5686, 2018.

2016

  • van den Heuvel, F., Goyette, S., Rahman, K., and Stoffel, M.: Circulation patterns related to debris-flow triggering in the Zermatt valley in current and future climates, Geomorph, 272, 127-136, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.12.010, 2016.
  • (non scientific) Elégie pour l’Arctique où la glace fond si vite, 24 Heures Grand Nord project, 12.07.2016.

Publications from NERC Open Research Archive

2021

Fisher, Ben J., Shiggins, Connor J., Naylor, Angus W., Rawlins, Lauren D., Tallentire, Guy D., van den Heuvel, Floor, Poku, Craig, García-Ibáñez, Maribel I., Debyser, Margot, Buckingham, Jack. (2021) [Comment] Interventions to prevent pandemic-driven diversity loss. Communications Earth & Environment, 2 (). 4 pp. 10.1038/s43247-021-00310-8

    Twitter: @CloudSenseNERC