A new approach to estimate supersaturation fluctuations in stratocumulus cloud using ground-based remote-sensing measurements
Abstract
Supersaturation, crucial for cloud droplet activation and condensational growth, varies in clouds at different spatial and temporal scales. In-cloud supersaturation is poorly known and rarely measured directly. On the scale of a few tens of meters, supersaturation in clouds has been estimated from in-situ measurements assuming quasi-steady state supersaturation. Here, we provide a new method to estimate supersaturation using ground-based remote sensing measurements, and results are compared with those estimated from aircraft in-situ measurements in a marine stratocumulus cloud during the ACE-ENA field campaign. Our method agrees reasonably well with in-situ estimations and it has three advantages: (1) it does not rely on the quasi-steady state assumption, which is questionable in clean or turbulent clouds; (2) it can provide a supersaturation profile, rather than just point values from in-situ measurements; and (3) it enables building statistics of supersaturation in stratocumulus clouds for various meteorological conditions from multi-year ground-based measurements. The uncertainties, limitations and possible applications of our method are discussed.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1573412
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1572288
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-212252-2019-JAAM
Journal ID: ISSN 1867-8548
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012704
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online) Journal Volume: 12 Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 1867-8548
- Publisher:
- Copernicus Publications, EGU
- Country of Publication:
- Germany
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Citation Formats
Yang, Fan, McGraw, Robert, Luke, Edward P., Zhang, Damao, Kollias, Pavlos, and Vogelmann, Andrew M. A new approach to estimate supersaturation fluctuations in stratocumulus cloud using ground-based remote-sensing measurements. Germany: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.5194/amt-12-5817-2019.
Yang, Fan, McGraw, Robert, Luke, Edward P., Zhang, Damao, Kollias, Pavlos, & Vogelmann, Andrew M. A new approach to estimate supersaturation fluctuations in stratocumulus cloud using ground-based remote-sensing measurements. Germany. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-5817-2019
Yang, Fan, McGraw, Robert, Luke, Edward P., Zhang, Damao, Kollias, Pavlos, and Vogelmann, Andrew M. Thu .
"A new approach to estimate supersaturation fluctuations in stratocumulus cloud using ground-based remote-sensing measurements". Germany. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-5817-2019.
@article{osti_1573412,
title = {A new approach to estimate supersaturation fluctuations in stratocumulus cloud using ground-based remote-sensing measurements},
author = {Yang, Fan and McGraw, Robert and Luke, Edward P. and Zhang, Damao and Kollias, Pavlos and Vogelmann, Andrew M.},
abstractNote = {Supersaturation, crucial for cloud droplet activation and condensational growth, varies in clouds at different spatial and temporal scales. In-cloud supersaturation is poorly known and rarely measured directly. On the scale of a few tens of meters, supersaturation in clouds has been estimated from in-situ measurements assuming quasi-steady state supersaturation. Here, we provide a new method to estimate supersaturation using ground-based remote sensing measurements, and results are compared with those estimated from aircraft in-situ measurements in a marine stratocumulus cloud during the ACE-ENA field campaign. Our method agrees reasonably well with in-situ estimations and it has three advantages: (1) it does not rely on the quasi-steady state assumption, which is questionable in clean or turbulent clouds; (2) it can provide a supersaturation profile, rather than just point values from in-situ measurements; and (3) it enables building statistics of supersaturation in stratocumulus clouds for various meteorological conditions from multi-year ground-based measurements. The uncertainties, limitations and possible applications of our method are discussed.},
doi = {10.5194/amt-12-5817-2019},
journal = {Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online)},
number = 11,
volume = 12,
place = {Germany},
year = {Thu Nov 07 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Thu Nov 07 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}
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https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-5817-2019
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Cited by: 9 works
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