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Title: Satellite retrieval of cloud condensation nuclei concentrations by using clouds as CCN chambers

Journal Article · · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
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  1. The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Jerusalem (Israel)
  2. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (China)
  3. Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz (Germany)
  4. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO (United States)
  5. Meteorological Institute of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an (China)
  6. Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (China); Meteorological Institute of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an (China)
  7. Univ. of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Quantifying the aerosol/cloud-mediated radiative effect at a global scale requires simultaneous satellite retrievals of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations and cloud base updraft velocities (Wb). Hitherto, the inability to do so has been a major cause of high uncertainty regarding anthropogenic aerosol/cloud-mediated radiative forcing. This can be addressed by the emerging capability of estimating CCN and Wb of boundary layer convective clouds from an operational polar orbiting weather satellite. In this paper, our methodology uses such clouds as an effective analog for CCN chambers. The cloud base supersaturation (S) is determined by Wb and the satellite-retrieved cloud base drop concentrations (Ndb), which is the same as CCN(S). Validation against ground-based CCN instruments at Oklahoma, at Manaus, and onboard a ship in the northeast Pacific showed a retrieval accuracy of ±25% to ±30% for individual satellite overpasses. The methodology is presently limited to boundary layer not raining convective clouds of at least 1 km depth that are not obscured by upper layer clouds, including semitransparent cirrus. Finally, the limitation for small solar backscattering angles of <25° restricts the satellite coverage to ~25% of the world area in a single day.

Research Organization:
Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem (Israel)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0006787
OSTI ID:
1348413
Journal Information:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 113, Issue 21; ISSN 0027-8424
Publisher:
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (United States)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 70 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (27)

Sensitivities of Amazonian clouds to aerosols and updraft speed journal January 2017
East Asian Study of Tropospheric Aerosols and their Impact on Regional Clouds, Precipitation, and Climate (EAST‐AIR CPC ) journal December 2019
Retrieval of Cloud Condensation Nuclei Number Concentration Profiles From Lidar Extinction and Backscatter Data journal June 2018
Long-term cloud condensation nuclei number concentration, particle number size distribution and chemical composition measurements at regionally representative observatories text January 2018
Aerosol and monsoon climate interactions over Asia journal November 2016
Satellite‐Based Estimation of Cloud Top Radiative Cooling Rate for Marine Stratocumulus journal April 2019
Method to retrieve cloud condensation nuclei number concentrations using lidar measurements journal January 2019
Long-term cloud condensation nuclei number concentration, particle number size distribution and chemical composition measurements at regionally representative observatories text January 2018
Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX): towards a holistic understanding of the feedbacks and interactions in the land–atmosphere–ocean–society continuum in the northern Eurasian region journal January 2016
Observational constraint on cloud susceptibility weakened by aerosol retrieval limitations journal July 2018
Constraining the instantaneous aerosol influence on cloud albedo journal April 2017
Long-term observations of cloud condensation nuclei over the Amazon rain forest – Part 2: Variability and characteristics of biomass burning, long-range transport, and pristine rain forest aerosols journal January 2018
Remote Sensing of Droplet Number Concentration in Warm Clouds: A Review of the Current State of Knowledge and Perspectives journal June 2018
Polarimetric Radar Convective Cell Tracking Reveals Large Sensitivity of Cloud Precipitation and Electrification Properties to CCN journal November 2019
Under What Conditions Can We Trust Retrieved Cloud Drop Concentrations in Broken Marine Stratocumulus? journal August 2018
Improving our fundamental understanding of the role of aerosol−cloud interactions in the climate system journal May 2016
Microphysical Properties of Convective Clouds in Summer over the Tibetan Plateau from SNPP/VIIRS Satellite Data journal June 2019
Aerosol-driven droplet concentrations dominate coverage and water of oceanic low-level clouds journal January 2019
Collocated observations of cloud condensation nuclei, particle size distributions, and chemical composition journal March 2017
Collocated observations of cloud condensation nuclei, particle size distributions, and chemical composition text January 2017
Use of polarimetric radar measurements to constrain simulated convective cell evolution: a pilot study with Lagrangian tracking journal January 2019
Effects of Aerosols on the Precipitation of Convective Clouds: A Case Study in the Yangtze River Delta of China journal July 2019
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Long-term cloud condensation nuclei number concentration, particle number size distribution and chemical composition measurements at regionally representative observatories journal January 2018
Aerosol type classification analysis using EARLINET multiwavelength and depolarization lidar observations journal February 2021
Impacts of cloud microphysics parameterizations on simulated aerosol–cloud interactions for deep convective clouds over Houston journal January 2021

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CCN concentrations
satellite remote sensing
convective clouds
cloud−aerosol interactions