Articles | Volume 16, issue 22
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-14331-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-14331-2016
Research article
 | 
17 Nov 2016
Research article |  | 17 Nov 2016

Observational evidence for aerosols increasing upper tropospheric humidity

Laura Riuttanen, Marja Bister, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Viju O. John, Anu-Maija Sundström, Miikka Dal Maso, Jouni Räisänen, Victoria A. Sinclair, Risto Makkonen, Filippo Xausa, Gerrit de Leeuw, and Markku Kulmala

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Subject: Aerosols | Research Activity: Remote Sensing | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
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Cited articles

Andreae, M. O.: Correlation between cloud condensation nuclei concentration and aerosol optical thickness in remote and polluted regions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 543–556, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-9-543-2009, 2009.
Bister, M. and Kulmala, M.: Anthropogenic aerosols may have increased upper tropospheric humidity in the 20th century, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 4577–4586, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-4577-2011, 2011.
Bonsignori, R.: The Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS): in-orbit performance assessment, Proc. SPIE 6744, Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XI, 67440A, 2007.
Boucher, O., Randall, D., Artaxo, P., Bretherton, C., Feingold, G., Forster, P., Kerminen, V.-M., Kondo, Y., Liao, H., Lohmann, U., Rasch, P., Satheesh, S. K., Sherwood, S., Stevens, B., and Zhang, X. Y.: Clouds and Aerosols, in: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Stocker, T. F., Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K., Tignor, M., Allen, S. K., Boschung, J., Nauels, A., Xia, Y., Bex, V., and Midgley, P. M., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 2013.
Buehler, S. A., Kuvatov, M., John, V. O., Milz, M., Soden, B. J., Jackson, D. L., and Notholt, J.: An upper tropospheric humidity data set from operational satellite microwave data, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D14110, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007JD009314, 2008.
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Here we show observational evidence that aerosols increase upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) via changes in the microphysics of deep convection. Using remote sensing data over the ocean east of China in summer, we show that increased aerosol loads are associated with an UTH increase of 2.2 ± 1.5 in units of relative humidity. We show that humidification of aerosols or other meteorological covariation is very unlikely to be the cause for this result indicating relevance for the global climate.
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