Exploring aerosol cloud interaction using VOCALS-REx aircraft measurements
Abstract
In situ aircraft measurements during the VAMOS Ocean–Cloud–Atmosphere–Land Study-Regional Experiment (VOCALS-REx) field campaign are employed to study the interaction between aerosol and stratocumulus over the southeast Pacific Ocean, as well as entrainment process near the top of stratocumulus and its possible impacts on aerosol–cloud interaction. Our analysis suggest that the increase of liquid water content (LWC) is mainly contributed by cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) instead of effective radius of cloud droplets in the polluted case, in which more droplets form with smaller size, while the opposite is true in the clean case. By looking into the influences of dynamical conditions and aerosol microphysical properties on the cloud droplet formation, it is confirmed that cloud droplets are more easily to form under the conditions with large vertical velocity and aerosol size. An increase in aerosol concentration tends to increase both Nd and relative dispersion (ϵ), while an increase in vertical velocity (w) often increases Nd but decreases ϵ. After constraining the differences of cloud dynamics, positive correlation between ϵ and Nd become stronger, implying that perturbations of w could weaken the influence of aerosol on ϵ, and hence may result in an underestimation of aerosol dispersion effect. The difference ofmore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[2]
- Nanjing Univ. of Information Science & Technology (China)
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1524545
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-211726-2019-JAAM
Journal ID: ISSN 1680-7375
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012704
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (Online); Journal Volume: in review; Journal ID: ISSN 1680-7375
- Publisher:
- European Geosciences Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Citation Formats
Jia, Hailing, Ma, Xiaoyan, and Liu, Yangang. Exploring aerosol cloud interaction using VOCALS-REx aircraft measurements. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.5194/acp-2018-667.
Jia, Hailing, Ma, Xiaoyan, & Liu, Yangang. Exploring aerosol cloud interaction using VOCALS-REx aircraft measurements. United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2018-667
Jia, Hailing, Ma, Xiaoyan, and Liu, Yangang. Thu .
"Exploring aerosol cloud interaction using VOCALS-REx aircraft measurements". United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2018-667. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1524545.
@article{osti_1524545,
title = {Exploring aerosol cloud interaction using VOCALS-REx aircraft measurements},
author = {Jia, Hailing and Ma, Xiaoyan and Liu, Yangang},
abstractNote = {In situ aircraft measurements during the VAMOS Ocean–Cloud–Atmosphere–Land Study-Regional Experiment (VOCALS-REx) field campaign are employed to study the interaction between aerosol and stratocumulus over the southeast Pacific Ocean, as well as entrainment process near the top of stratocumulus and its possible impacts on aerosol–cloud interaction. Our analysis suggest that the increase of liquid water content (LWC) is mainly contributed by cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) instead of effective radius of cloud droplets in the polluted case, in which more droplets form with smaller size, while the opposite is true in the clean case. By looking into the influences of dynamical conditions and aerosol microphysical properties on the cloud droplet formation, it is confirmed that cloud droplets are more easily to form under the conditions with large vertical velocity and aerosol size. An increase in aerosol concentration tends to increase both Nd and relative dispersion (ϵ), while an increase in vertical velocity (w) often increases Nd but decreases ϵ. After constraining the differences of cloud dynamics, positive correlation between ϵ and Nd become stronger, implying that perturbations of w could weaken the influence of aerosol on ϵ, and hence may result in an underestimation of aerosol dispersion effect. The difference of cloud microphysical properties between entrainment and non-entrainment zones confirms that the entrainment-mixing mechanism is predominantly extreme inhomogeneous in the stratocumulus that capped by a sharp inversion, namely the entrainment reduces Nd and LWC by 28.9 % and 24.8 % on average, respectively, while the size of droplets is relatively unaffected. In entrainment zone, smaller aerosols and drier air entrained from the top induce less cloud droplet with respect to total in-cloud particles (0.56 ± 0.22) than the case in non-entrainment zone (0.73 ± .0.13) by inhibiting aerosol activation and promoting cloud droplets evaporation.},
doi = {10.5194/acp-2018-667},
journal = {Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (Online)},
number = ,
volume = in review,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Oct 25 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Thu Oct 25 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journalFigures / Tables:
Table 1: Correlations between $ε$ and $N$$d$ ($N$$a$) from observation studies.
Figures / Tables found in this record: