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Franziska Glassmeier

Department Independent Research Groups
Group Multiscale Cloud Physics, Lise Meitner Group
Position Group Leader
phone +49 40 41173 469
Email franziska.glassmeier@mpimet.mpg.de
Room B119

Multiscale Cloud Physics Group - We are hiring

The Multiscale Cloud Physics Group is growing!
We have openings for PhD students, postdocs and summer students. Please get in touch and/or monitor our Job Opportunities!

Multiscale Cloud Physics

About my research

Clouds not only puzzle the casual observer but remain one of the most elusive scientific challenges. They are a key obstacle to advances in our understanding of Earth’s climate and climate change. The processes that make clouds so hard to grasp range from the formation of cloud droplets on aerosol particles to the marvelous patterns that we can observe in cloud fields to their coupling with global dynamics. My research is broadly motivated by this complexity and approaches to capture it.

Curriculum vitae

I lead a permanent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology as part of the Max Planck Society's Lise Meitner Excellence Program and I am Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology. I studied Physics at the University of Göttingen and earned my PhD from ETH Zurich in 2016, followed by positions at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder and Wageningen University.

Employment & Education

since 06/2025  Lise Meitner Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.
since 12/2024 Associate Professor, TU Delft.
2020–2024 Assistant Professor in Atmospheric Science, TU Delft.
2018–2019 Postdoctoral Researcher/Assistant Professor, Wageningen University.
2016–2018 Postdoctoral Researcher, NOAA, Boulder (CO)
03/2016 Doctor of Sciences (Dr. sc.), ETH Zürich.
11/2010 Diploma in Physics (Dipl. Phys.), University of Göttingen.

 

Selected Grants & Awards

from 2024  ERC Starting Grant.
2018–2024  The Branco Weiss Fellowship – Society in Science.
2018–2023 Veni grant of the Dutch Research Council.
2016–2018 US National Academies of Sciences Research Associateship.
2017 PhD Award of the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Commission of the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

 

Selected Professional Activities

Since 2024  Executive Committee International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation
Since 2022 Steering committee Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Climate Working Group
Since 2020 Co-editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

Teaching

In Spring 2026, I offer the lecture “Aerosol- und Wolkenphysik” (Aerosol and Cloud Physics).

Publications

  • Gjini, R., Morzfeld, M., Glassmeier, F. & Feingold, G. (2026). Technical note: Evaluation of conceptual predator-prey models for the quantitative modeling of precipitating open-cell stratocumulus via feature-based Bayesian inversion of a suite of Large eddy simulations. EGUsphere. doi:10.5194/egusphere-2026-2871 [Preprint] [pre-print]
  • Hernandez, B. & Glassmeier, F. (2026). Aerosol memory in stratocumulus clouds leads to noise-induced patterns and non-ergodic sampling. arXiv. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2605.04002 [Preprint] [pre-print]
  • Hernandez, B., Singh, M., Yamaguchi, T., Feingold, G. & Glassmeier, F. (2026). The remarkable inefficiency of stratocumulus. EGUsphere - The EGU interactive community platform, . doi:10.5194/egusphere-2026-923 [Preprint] [pre-print]

  • Hernandez, B., Singh, M., Yamaguchi, T., Feingold, G. & Glassmeier, F. (2026). The remarkable inefficiency of stratocumulus. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 26(13), 9337-9356. doi:10.5194/acp-26-9337-2026 [publisher-version]
  • Feingold, G., Glassmeier, F., Zhang, J. & Hoffmann, F. (2025). Opinion: inferring process from snapshots of cloud systems. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 25(18), 10869-10885. doi:10.5194/acp-25-10869-2025 [publisher-version]
  • Janssens, M., Jansson, F., Alinaghi, P., Glassmeier, F. & Siebesma, A. (2025). Symmetry in Mesoscale Circulations Explains Weak Impact of Trade Cumulus Self‐Organization on the Radiation Budget in Large‐Eddy Simulations. Geophysical Research Letters, 52(3): e2024GL112288. doi:10.1029/2024GL112288 [publisher-version]
  • Alinaghi, P., Jansson, F., Blázquez, D. & Glassmeier, F. (2025). Cold pools mediate mesoscale adjustments of trade-cumulus fields to changes in cloud droplet number concentration. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 25(12), 6121-6139. doi:10.5194/acp-25-6121-2025 [publisher-version]
  • Cheng, M. & Glassmeier, F. (2025). Capturing Aerosol‐Cloud‐Precipitation Interactions: A Physics‐Informed Sparse Regression Approach for a Coupled Multiscale System With Time Delay. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130(12): e2024JD043226. doi:10.1029/2024JD043226 [publisher-version]
  • Feingold, G., Glassmeier, F., Zhang, J. & Hoffmann, F. (2025). Opinion: Inferring process from snapshots of cloud systems. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 25(18), 10869-10885. doi:10.5194/acp-25-10869-2025 [publisher-version]
  • Hoffmann, F., Glassmeier, F. & Feingold, G. (2024). The impact of aerosol on cloud water: a heuristic perspective. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 24(23), 13403-13412. doi:10.5194/acp-24-13403-2024 [publisher-version]
  • Alinaghi, P., Siebesma, A., Jansson, F., Janssens, M. & Glassmeier, F. (2024). External Drivers and Mesoscale Self‐Organization of Shallow Cold Pools in the Trade‐Wind Regime. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 17(1): e2024MS004540. doi:10.1029/2024MS004540 [publisher-version]
  • Feingold, G., Ghate, V., Russell, L., Blossey, P., Cantrell, W., Christensen, M., Diamond, M., Gettelman, A., Glassmeier, F., Gryspeerdt, E., Haywood, J., Hoffmann, F., Kaul, C., Lebsock, M., McComiskey, A., McCoy, D., Ming, Y., Mülmenstädt, J., Possner, A., Prabhakaran, P., Quinn, P., Schmidt, K., Shaw, R., Singer, C., Sorooshian, A., Toll, V., Wan, J., Wood, R., Yang, F., Zhang, J. & Zheng, X. (2024). Physical science research needed to evaluate the viability and risks of marine cloud brightening. Science Advances, 10(12): eadi8594. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adi8594 [publisher-version]
  • Alinaghi, P., Janssens, M., Choudhury, G., Goren, T., Siebesma, A. & Glassmeier, F. (2024). Shallow cumulus cloud fields are optically thicker when they are more clustered. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 150(763), 3566-3577. doi:10.1002/qj.4783 [publisher-version]
  • Chen, Y.-S., Zhang, J., Hoffmann, F., Yamaguchi, T., Glassmeier, F., Zhou, X. & Feingold, G. (2024). Diurnal evolution of non-precipitating marine stratocumuli in a large-eddy simulation ensemble. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 24(22), 12661-12685. doi:10.5194/acp-24-12661-2024 [publisher-version]
  • Hoffmann, F., Glassmeier, F., Yamaguchi, T. & Feingold, G. (2023). On the Roles of Precipitation and Entrainment in Stratocumulus Transitions between Mesoscale States. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 80(12), 2791-2803. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-22-0268.1 [publisher-version]
  • Janssens, M., Vilà‐Guerau de Arellano, J., van Heerwaarden, C., van Stratum, B., de Roode, S., Siebesma, A. & Glassmeier, F. (2023). The Time Scale of Shallow Convective Self‐Aggregation in Large‐Eddy Simulations Is Sensitive to Numerics. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15(1): e2022MS003292. doi:10.1029/2022MS003292 [publisher-version]
  • Jansson, F., Janssens, M., Grönqvist, J., Siebesma, A., Glassmeier, F., Attema, J., Azizi, V., Satoh, M., Sato, Y., Schulz, H. & Kölling, T. (2023). Cloud Botany: Shallow Cumulus Clouds in an Ensemble of Idealized Large‐Domain Large‐Eddy Simulations of the Trades. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15(11): e2023MS003796. doi:10.1029/2023MS003796 [publisher-version]
  • Janssens, M., Vilà-Guerau de Arellano, J., van Heerwaarden, C., de Roode, S., Siebesma, A. & Glassmeier, F. (2023). Nonprecipitating Shallow Cumulus Convection Is Intrinsically Unstable to Length Scale Growth. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 80(3), 849-870. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-22-0111.1 [publisher-version]
  • Christensen, M., Gettelman, A., Cermak, J., Dagan, G., Diamond, M., Douglas, A., Feingold, G., Glassmeier, F., Goren, T., Grosvenor, D., Gryspeerdt, E., Kahn, R., Li, Z., Ma, P.-L., Malavelle, F., McCoy, I., McCoy, D., McFarquhar, G., Mülmenstädt, J., Pal, S., Possner, A., Povey, A., Quaas, J., Rosenfeld, D., Schmidt, A., Schrödner, R., Sorooshian, A., Stier, P., Toll, V., Watson-Parris, D., Wood, R., Yang, M. & Yuan, T. (2022). Opportunistic experiments to constrainaerosol effective radiative forcing. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(1), 641-674. doi:10.5194/acp-22-641-2022 [publisher-version]
  • Gryspeerdt, E., Glassmeier, F., Feingold, G., Hoffmann, F. & Murray-Watson, R. (2022). Observing short-timescale cloud development to constrain aerosol–cloud interactions. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(17), 11727-11738. doi:10.5194/acp-22-11727-2022 [publisher-version]
  • Glassmeier, F., Hoffmann, F., Johnson, J., Yamaguchi, T., Carslaw, K. & Feingold, G. (2021). Aerosol-cloud-climate cooling overestimated by ship-track data. Science, 371(6528), 485-489. doi:10.1126/science.abd3980
  • Janssens, M., Vilà‐Guerau de Arellano, J., Scheffer, M., Antonissen, C., Siebesma, A. & Glassmeier, F. (2021). Cloud Patterns in the Trades Have Four Interpretable Dimensions. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(5): e2020GL091001. doi:10.1029/2020GL091001 [publisher-version]
  • Lunderman, S., Morzfeld, M., Glassmeier, F. & Feingold, G. (2020). Estimating parameters of the nonlinear cloud and rain equation from a large-eddy simulation. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 410: 132500. doi:10.1016/j.physd.2020.132500
  • Hoffmann, F., Glassmeier, F., Yamaguchi, T. & Feingold, G. (2020). Liquid Water Path Steady States in Stratocumulus: Insights from Process-Level Emulation and Mixed-Layer Theory. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 77(6), 2203-2215. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-19-0241.1
  • Glassmeier, F., Hoffmann, F., Johnson, J., Yamaguchi, T., Carslaw, K. & Feingold, G. (2019). An emulator approach to stratocumulus susceptibility. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 19(15), 10191-10203. doi:10.5194/acp-19-10191-2019 [publisher-version]
  • Glassmeier, F., Arnold, L., Dietlicher, R., Paukert, M. & Lohmann, U. (2018). A Modeling Study on the Sensitivities of Atmospheric Charge Separation According to the Relative Diffusional Growth Rate Theory to Nonspherical Hydrometeors and Cloud Microphysics. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 123(21), 12,236-12,252. doi:10.1029/2018JD028356 [publisher-version]
  • Glassmeier, F. & Lohmann, U. (2018). Precipitation Susceptibility and Aerosol Buffering of Warm- and Mixed-Phase Orographic Clouds in Idealized Simulations. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 75(4), 1173-1194. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-17-0254.1 [publisher-version]
  • Glassmeier, F., Possner, A., Vogel, B., Vogel, H. & Lohmann, U. (2017). A comparison of two chemistry and aerosol schemes on the regional scale and the resulting impact on radiative properties and liquid- and ice-phase aerosol–cloud interactions. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17(14), 8651-8680. doi:10.5194/acp-17-8651-2017 [publisher-version]
  • Glassmeier, F. & Feingold, G. (2017). Network approach to patterns in stratocumulus clouds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(40), 10578-10583. doi:10.1073/pnas.1706495114
  • Feingold, G., Balsells, J., Glassmeier, F., Yamaguchi, T., Kazil, J. & McComiskey, A. (2017). Analysis of albedo versus cloud fraction relationships in liquid water clouds using heuristic models and large eddy simulation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 122(13), 7086-7102. doi:10.1002/2017JD026467
  • Glassmeier, F. & Lohmann, U. (2016). Constraining Precipitation Susceptibility of Warm-, Ice-, and Mixed-Phase Clouds with Microphysical Equations. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 73(12), 5003-5023. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-16-0008.1

  • Stevens, B., Andrews, T., Bender, F.-M., Bony, S., Ceppi, P., Glassmeier, F., Glöckner, H., Gregory, J., Loeb, N., Masunaga, H., Meyssignac, B., Myhre, G., Rugenstein, M., Singer, C., Soden, B., Aubel, A., Bellon, G., Bolot, M., Clerbaux, N., Fiévet, R., Fons, E., Giorgetta, M., Hadas, O., Hohenegger, C., Kluft, L., Krueger, K., Lécuyer, J., Mauritsen, T., Mayer, B., Mayer, J., Mayer, M., McKim, B., Michibata, T., Orlijan-Rhyne, R., Park, C., Roh, W., Samset, B., Satoh, M., Schmidt, G., Schulz, M., Smith, C., Tselioudis, G., Tsushima, Y., Volkmer, L. & Wilcox, L. (2026). Earth’s net incoming energy-flux imbalance (and its implications for understanding climate change). [publisher-version]