Process Modeling of Aerosol‐Cloud Interaction in Summertime Precipitating Shallow Cumulus Over the Western North Atlantic
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz (Germany)
- NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (United States); Analytical Mechanics Associates, Hampton, VA (United States)
- NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (United States)
- Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
- NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (United States); Coherent Applications, Inc., Hampton, VA (United States)
- NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies (GISS), New York, NY (United States)
Process modeling of Aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) is essential to bridging gaps between observational analysis and climate modeling of aerosol effects in the Earth system and eventually reducing climate projection uncertainties. In this study, we examine ACI in summertime precipitating shallow cumuli observed during the Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE). Aerosols and precipitating shallow cumuli were extensively observed with in-situ and remote-sensing instruments during two research flight cases on 02 June and 07 June, respectively, during the ACTIVATE summer 2021 deployment phase. We perform observational analysis and large-eddy simulation (LES) of aerosol effect on precipitating cumulus in these two cases. Given the measured aerosol size distributions and meteorological conditions, LES is able to reproduce the observed cloud properties by aircraft such as liquid water content (LWC), cloud droplet number concentration (Nc) and effective radius reff. However, it produces smaller liquid water path (LWP) and larger Nc compared to the satellite retrievals. Both 02 and 07 June cases are over warm waters of the Gulf Stream and have a cloud top height over 3 km, but the 07 June case is more polluted and has larger LWC. We find that the Na-induced LWP adjustment is dominated by precipitation feedback for the 2 June precipitating case and there is no clear entrainment feedback in both cases. An increase of cloud fraction due to a decrease of aerosol number concentration is also shown in the simulations for the 02 June case.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 2328649
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 2336733; OSTI ID: 2337561
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-186592
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheres, Vol. 129, Issue 7; ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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