Scientists at a US national laboratory have built a custom cloud chamber that lets them create and study clouds under controlled conditions for the first time.
Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory watched with excitement as tiny specks illuminated by green laser light swirled together and formed a wispy cloud inside their new convection cloud chamber—a one-cubic-meter metal box they built from scratch .
The team successfully created a cloud in their programmable atmosphere, marking a major step forward for cloud research. “We saw the birth of a cloud,” said atmospheric scientist Arthur Sedlacek. “There was a lot of excitement and happiness, and relief, in that moment”.
Arthur Sedlacek and Fan Yang, atmospheric scientists at Brookhaven, led the project with engineers from the lab’s Instrumentation Department. The team drew on more than a decade of experience and collaboration with Michigan Technological University, home to the only other convection cloud chamber in the United States .
READ ALSO: https://modernmechanics24.com/post/europe-hypersonic-missile-vs-oreshnik/
Clouds remain one of the biggest uncertainties in weather and climate models. Scientists understand that clouds regulate Earth’s energy balance and drive storms, but they don’t fully understand basic processes—like why some clouds produce rain while others don’t. Studying real clouds is difficult because they change constantly; aircraft flythroughs capture only snapshots .
The chamber creates clouds by combining supersaturated air with aerosol particles. Scientists heat water in the bottom baseplate, releasing vapor that rises and mixes with cold air from the top panel. This creates humidity above 100 percent. When researchers inject aerosol particles like table salt, water vapor condenses on them, forming cloud droplets that grow and persist for hours in a steady state .
The chamber lets scientists control temperature, humidity, and turbulence while making repeatable measurements. This allows them to study how aerosol composition and size affect cloud formation, droplet size distribution, and cloud persistence—all without disrupting the delicate environment. The modular design can be expanded to study drizzle and raindrop formation .
The team is still developing advanced instruments to measure inside the chamber without disturbing airflow. They plan to use fluorescent dye and lasers to track aerosol activation, lidar to observe cloud structure, and novel THz radar to detect individual drizzle droplets and measure how fast they fall .
WATCH ALSO: https://modernmechanics24.com/post/china-new-massive-battle-tank-live-fire/
“Cloud chamber science is experiencing a resurgence,” said Raymond Shaw of Michigan Tech, who helped develop both chambers. The controlled experiments provide insights that improve weather forecasting and climate models. The chamber could also support other research—from how atmospheric conditions affect energy infrastructure to how pollen and pathogens move through the air. As Sedlacek put it: “We welcome ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas that this brand-new capability can provide”.
