Impact of Saharan dust on North Atlantic marine stratocumulus clouds: importance of the semidirect effect

Amiri-Farahani, Anahita; Allen, Robert J.; Neubauer, David; Lohmann, Ulrike

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6305-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6305-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6305-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 10

Research article

|

23 May 2017

Research article |

| 23 May 2017

Impact of Saharan dust on North Atlantic marine stratocumulus clouds: importance of the semidirect effect

Anahita Amiri-Farahani, Robert J. Allen, David Neubauer, and Ulrike Lohmann

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Final revised paper (published on 23 May 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 26 Oct 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC1: 'There is no reference to papers by Kishcha et al. (2014, 2015) on significant cloud cover up to 0.8 – 0.9 (created by desert dust intrusions) along the Saharan Air Layer in the tropical Atlantic', Pavel Kishcha, 09 Nov 2016
- AC1: 'Response to the first short comment', Anahita Amiri Farahani, 15 Apr 2017
SC2: 'Large uncertainty of the estimated dust radiative effect in winter', Pavel Kishcha, 16 Nov 2016
- AC2: 'Response to the second short comment', Anahita Amiri Farahani, 15 Apr 2017
RC1: 'acp-2016-933', W. Wang, 25 Nov 2016
- AC3: 'Response to the first referee', Anahita Amiri Farahani, 15 Apr 2017
RC2: 'Reviews', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Mar 2017
- AC4: 'Response to the second referee', Anahita Amiri Farahani, 15 Apr 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Anahita Amiri Farahani on behalf of the Authors (15 Apr 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (18 Apr 2017) by Jianping Huang

AR by Anahita Amiri Farahani on behalf of the Authors (26 Apr 2017)

Short summary

We use observations from 2004 to 2012 to obtain estimates of the aerosol–cloud radiative effect, including its uncertainty, for dust aerosol influencing Atlantic marine stratocumulus clouds (MSc) off the coast of north Africa. Saharan dust modifies MSc in a way that acts to cool the planet. There is a strong seasonal variation, with the aerosol–cloud radiative effect switching from significantly negative during the boreal summer to weakly positive during boreal winter.