Articles | Volume 18, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15261-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15261-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
24 Oct 2018
Research article |
| 24 Oct 2018
| 24 Oct 2018
Large simulated radiative effects of smoke in the south-east Atlantic
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Paul R. Field
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Met Office, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK
Steven J. Abel
Met Office, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK
Mohit Dalvi
Met Office, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK
Daniel P. Grosvenor
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Adrian A. Hill
Met Office, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK
Ben T. Johnson
Met Office, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK
Annette K. Miltenberger
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Masaru Yoshioka
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Ken S. Carslaw
School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
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Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12113–12151, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12113-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12113-2022, 2022
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Haochi Che, Philip Stier, Duncan Watson-Parris, Hamish Gordon, and Lucia Deaconu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10789–10807, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10789-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10789-2022, 2022
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Sarah J. Doherty, Pablo E. Saide, Paquita Zuidema, Yohei Shinozuka, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Hamish Gordon, Marc Mallet, Kerry Meyer, David Painemal, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, James R. Podolske, Sharon P. Burton, Richard A. Ferrare, Calvin Howes, Pierre Nabat, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Kristina Pistone, Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Robert Wood, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1–46, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, 2022
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Mao Xiao, Christopher R. Hoyle, Lubna Dada, Dominik Stolzenburg, Andreas Kürten, Mingyi Wang, Houssni Lamkaddam, Olga Garmash, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Andrea Baccarini, Mario Simon, Xu-Cheng He, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Lauri R. Ahonen, Rima Baalbaki, Paulus S. Bauer, Lisa Beck, David Bell, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Dexian Chen, Randall Chiu, António Dias, Jonathan Duplissy, Henning Finkenzeller, Hamish Gordon, Victoria Hofbauer, Changhyuk Kim, Theodore K. Koenig, Janne Lampilahti, Chuan Ping Lee, Zijun Li, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Ruby Marten, Serge Mathot, Roy L. Mauldin, Wei Nie, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Veronika Pospisilova, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti Rissanen, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, António Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Andrea C. Wagner, Robert Wagner, Yonghong Wang, Lena Weitz, Daniela Wimmer, Yusheng Wu, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qing Ye, Qiaozhi Zha, Xueqin Zhou, Antonio Amorim, Ken Carslaw, Joachim Curtius, Armin Hansel, Rainer Volkamer, Paul M. Winkler, Richard C. Flagan, Markku Kulmala, Douglas R. Worsnop, Jasper Kirkby, Neil M. Donahue, Urs Baltensperger, Imad El Haddad, and Josef Dommen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14275–14291, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14275-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14275-2021, 2021
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Experiments at CLOUD show that in polluted environments new particle formation (NPF) is largely driven by the formation of sulfuric acid–base clusters, stabilized by amines, high ammonia concentrations or lower temperatures. While oxidation products of aromatics can nucleate, they play a minor role in urban NPF. Our experiments span 4 orders of magnitude variation of observed NPF rates in ambient conditions. We provide a framework based on NPF and growth rates to interpret ambient observations.
Ananth Ranjithkumar, Hamish Gordon, Christina Williamson, Andrew Rollins, Kirsty Pringle, Agnieszka Kupc, Nathan Luke Abraham, Charles Brock, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 4979–5014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4979-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4979-2021, 2021
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The effect aerosols have on climate can be better understood by studying their vertical and spatial distribution throughout the atmosphere. We use observation data from the ATom campaign and evaluate the vertical profile of aerosol number concentration, sulfur dioxide and condensation sink using the UKESM (UK Earth System Model). We identify uncertainties in key atmospheric processes that help improve their theoretical representation in global climate models.
Jim M. Haywood, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Nicolas Bellouin, Alan Blyth, Keith N. Bower, Melissa Brooks, Ken Carslaw, Haochi Che, Hugh Coe, Michael I. Cotterell, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Nicholas Davies, Beth Dingley, Paul Field, Paola Formenti, Hamish Gordon, Martin de Graaf, Ross Herbert, Ben Johnson, Anthony C. Jones, Justin M. Langridge, Florent Malavelle, Daniel G. Partridge, Fanny Peers, Jens Redemann, Philip Stier, Kate Szpek, Jonathan W. Taylor, Duncan Watson-Parris, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1049–1084, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, 2021
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Every year, the seasonal cycle of biomass burning from agricultural practices in Africa creates a huge plume of smoke that travels many thousands of kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean. This study provides an overview of a measurement campaign called the cloud–aerosol–radiation interaction and forcing for year 2017 (CLARIFY-2017) and documents the rationale, deployment strategy, observations, and key results from the campaign which utilized the heavily equipped FAAM atmospheric research aircraft.
Haochi Che, Philip Stier, Hamish Gordon, Duncan Watson-Parris, and Lucia Deaconu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17–33, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17-2021, 2021
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The south-eastern Atlantic is semi-permanently covered by some of the largest stratocumulus clouds and is influenced by one-third of the biomass burning emissions from African fires. A UKEMS1 model simulation shows that the absorption effect of biomass burning aerosols is the most significant on clouds and radiation. The dominate cooling and rapid adjustments induced by the radiative effects of biomass burning aerosols result in an overall cooling in the south-eastern Atlantic.
Martin Heinritzi, Lubna Dada, Mario Simon, Dominik Stolzenburg, Andrea C. Wagner, Lukas Fischer, Lauri R. Ahonen, Stavros Amanatidis, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Paulus S. Bauer, Bernhard Baumgartner, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Dexian Chen, Randall Chiu, Antonio Dias, Josef Dommen, Jonathan Duplissy, Henning Finkenzeller, Carla Frege, Claudia Fuchs, Olga Garmash, Hamish Gordon, Manuel Granzin, Imad El Haddad, Xucheng He, Johanna Helm, Victoria Hofbauer, Christopher R. Hoyle, Juha Kangasluoma, Timo Keber, Changhyuk Kim, Andreas Kürten, Houssni Lamkaddam, Tiia M. Laurila, Janne Lampilahti, Chuan Ping Lee, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Markus Leiminger, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna Elina Manninen, Ruby Marten, Serge Mathot, Roy Lee Mauldin, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Tatjana Müller, Wei Nie, Tuomo Nieminen, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Monica Passananti, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Veronika Pospisilova, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti P. Rissanen, Clémence Rose, Siegfried Schobesberger, Wiebke Scholz, Kay Scholze, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Annele Virtanen, Alexander L. Vogel, Rainer Volkamer, Robert Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Lena Weitz, Daniela Wimmer, Mao Xiao, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qiaozhi Zha, Xueqin Zhou, Antonio Amorim, Urs Baltensperger, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, António Tomé, Paul M. Winkler, Douglas R. Worsnop, Neil M. Donahue, Jasper Kirkby, and Joachim Curtius
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11809–11821, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11809-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11809-2020, 2020
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With experiments performed at CLOUD, we show how isoprene interferes in monoterpene oxidation via RO2 termination at atmospherically relevant concentrations. This interference shifts the distribution of highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) away from C20 class dimers towards C15 class dimers, which subsequently reduces both biogenic nucleation and early growth rates. Our results may help to understand the absence of new-particle formation in isoprene-rich environments.
Yohei Shinozuka, Pablo E. Saide, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Sharon P. Burton, Richard Ferrare, Sarah J. Doherty, Hamish Gordon, Karla Longo, Marc Mallet, Yan Feng, Qiaoqiao Wang, Yafang Cheng, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Steven G. Howell, Samuel LeBlanc, Connor Flynn, Michal Segal-Rosenhaimer, Kristina Pistone, James R. Podolske, Eric J. Stith, Joseph Ryan Bennett, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Ravi Govindaraju, Ruby Leung, Yang Zhang, Leonhard Pfister, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Jens Redemann, Robert Wood, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11491–11526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, 2020
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In the southeast Atlantic, well-defined smoke plumes from Africa advect over marine boundary layer cloud decks; both are most extensive around September, when most of the smoke resides in the free troposphere. A framework is put forth for evaluating the performance of a range of global and regional atmospheric composition models against observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) airborne mission in September 2016.
Hamish Gordon, Paul R. Field, Steven J. Abel, Paul Barrett, Keith Bower, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Adrian A. Hill, Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Wilkinson, Huihui Wu, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10997–11024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10997-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10997-2020, 2020
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The Met Office's Unified Model is widely used both for weather forecasting and climate prediction. We present the first version of the model in which both aerosol and cloud particle mass and number concentrations are allowed to evolve separately and independently, which is important for studying how aerosols affect weather and climate. We test the model against aircraft observations near Ascension Island in the Atlantic, focusing on how aerosols can "activate" to become cloud droplets.
James Weber, Scott Archer-Nicholls, Paul Griffiths, Torsten Berndt, Michael Jenkin, Hamish Gordon, Christoph Knote, and Alexander T. Archibald
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10889–10910, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10889-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10889-2020, 2020
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Highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) are important for aerosol growth and new particle formation, particularly in air masses with less sulphuric acid. This new chemical mechanism reproduces measured [HOM] and [HOM precursors] and is concise enough for use in global climate models. The mechanism also reproduces the observed suppression of HOMs by isoprene, suggesting enhanced emissions may not necessarily lead to more aerosols. Greater HOM importance in the pre-industrial era is also shown.
Mario Simon, Lubna Dada, Martin Heinritzi, Wiebke Scholz, Dominik Stolzenburg, Lukas Fischer, Andrea C. Wagner, Andreas Kürten, Birte Rörup, Xu-Cheng He, João Almeida, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Paulus S. Bauer, Lisa Beck, Anton Bergen, Federico Bianchi, Steffen Bräkling, Sophia Brilke, Lucia Caudillo, Dexian Chen, Biwu Chu, António Dias, Danielle C. Draper, Jonathan Duplissy, Imad El-Haddad, Henning Finkenzeller, Carla Frege, Loic Gonzalez-Carracedo, Hamish Gordon, Manuel Granzin, Jani Hakala, Victoria Hofbauer, Christopher R. Hoyle, Changhyuk Kim, Weimeng Kong, Houssni Lamkaddam, Chuan P. Lee, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Markus Leiminger, Huajun Mai, Hanna E. Manninen, Guillaume Marie, Ruby Marten, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Leonid Nichman, Wei Nie, Andrea Ojdanic, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Maxim Philippov, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Ananth Ranjithkumar, Matti P. Rissanen, Simon Schallhart, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Jiali Shen, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee J. Tham, António R. Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Alexander L. Vogel, Robert Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Dongyu S. Wang, Yonghong Wang, Stefan K. Weber, Yusheng Wu, Mao Xiao, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qing Ye, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Xueqin Zhou, Urs Baltensperger, Josef Dommen, Richard C. Flagan, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Rainer Volkamer, Paul M. Winkler, Douglas R. Worsnop, Neil M. Donahue, Jasper Kirkby, and Joachim Curtius
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9183–9207, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9183-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9183-2020, 2020
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Highly oxygenated organic compounds (HOMs) have been identified as key vapors involved in atmospheric new-particle formation (NPF). The molecular distribution, HOM yield, and NPF from α-pinene oxidation experiments were measured at the CLOUD chamber over a wide tropospheric-temperature range. This study shows on a molecular scale that despite the sharp reduction in HOM yield at lower temperatures, the reduced volatility counteracts this effect and leads to an overall increase in the NPF rate.
Dominik Stolzenburg, Mario Simon, Ananth Ranjithkumar, Andreas Kürten, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Hamish Gordon, Sebastian Ehrhart, Henning Finkenzeller, Lukas Pichelstorfer, Tuomo Nieminen, Xu-Cheng He, Sophia Brilke, Mao Xiao, António Amorim, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Lisa Beck, Steffen Bräkling, Lucía Caudillo Murillo, Dexian Chen, Biwu Chu, Lubna Dada, António Dias, Josef Dommen, Jonathan Duplissy, Imad El Haddad, Lukas Fischer, Loic Gonzalez Carracedo, Martin Heinritzi, Changhyuk Kim, Theodore K. Koenig, Weimeng Kong, Houssni Lamkaddam, Chuan Ping Lee, Markus Leiminger, Zijun Li, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Guillaume Marie, Ruby Marten, Tatjana Müller, Wei Nie, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Maxim Philippov, Matti P. Rissanen, Birte Rörup, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Jiali Shen, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, António Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Andrea C. Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Yonghong Wang, Stefan K. Weber, Daniela Wimmer, Peter J. Wlasits, Yusheng Wu, Qing Ye, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Urs Baltensperger, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Richard C. Flagan, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Jos Lelieveld, Rainer Volkamer, Jasper Kirkby, and Paul M. Winkler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 7359–7372, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7359-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7359-2020, 2020
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Sulfuric acid is a major atmospheric vapour for aerosol formation. If new particles grow fast enough, they can act as cloud droplet seeds or affect air quality. In a controlled laboratory set-up, we demonstrate that van der Waals forces enhance growth from sulfuric acid. We disentangle the effects of ammonia, ions and particle hydration, presenting a complete picture of sulfuric acid growth from molecular clusters onwards. In a climate model, we show its influence on the global aerosol budget.
Daniel T. McCoy, Paul Field, Hamish Gordon, Gregory S. Elsaesser, and Daniel P. Grosvenor
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4085–4103, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4085-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4085-2020, 2020
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Incomplete understanding of how aerosol affects clouds degrades our ability to predict future climate. In particular, it is unclear how aerosol affects the lifetime of clouds. Does it increase or decrease it? This confusion is partially because causality flows from aerosol to clouds and clouds to aerosol, and it is hard to tell what is happening in observations. Here, we use simulations to tell us about how clouds affect aerosol and use this to interpret observations, showing increased lifetime.
Matthew J. Rowlinson, Alexandru Rap, Stephen R. Arnold, Richard J. Pope, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Joe McNorton, Piers Forster, Hamish Gordon, Kirsty J. Pringle, Wuhu Feng, Brian J. Kerridge, Barry L. Latter, and Richard Siddans
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 8669–8686, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8669-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8669-2019, 2019
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Wildfires and meteorology have a substantial effect on atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as methane and ozone. During the 1997 El Niño event, unusually large fire emissions indirectly increased global methane through carbon monoxide emission, which decreased the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. There were also large regional changes to tropospheric ozone concentrations, but contrasting effects of fire and meteorology resulted in a small change to global radiative forcing.
Robert Wagner, Chao Yan, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Jonathan Duplissy, Tuomo Nieminen, Juha Kangasluoma, Lauri R. Ahonen, Lubna Dada, Jenni Kontkanen, Hanna E. Manninen, Antonio Dias, Antonio Amorim, Paulus S. Bauer, Anton Bergen, Anne-Kathrin Bernhammer, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Stephany Buenrostro Mazon, Xuemeng Chen, Danielle C. Draper, Lukas Fischer, Carla Frege, Claudia Fuchs, Olga Garmash, Hamish Gordon, Jani Hakala, Liine Heikkinen, Martin Heinritzi, Victoria Hofbauer, Christopher R. Hoyle, Jasper Kirkby, Andreas Kürten, Alexander N. Kvashnin, Tiia Laurila, Michael J. Lawler, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Roy L. Mauldin III, Ugo Molteni, Leonid Nichman, Wei Nie, Andrea Ojdanic, Antti Onnela, Felix Piel, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti P. Rissanen, Nina Sarnela, Simon Schallhart, Kamalika Sengupta, Mario Simon, Dominik Stolzenburg, Yuri Stozhkov, Jasmin Tröstl, Yrjö Viisanen, Alexander L. Vogel, Andrea C. Wagner, Mao Xiao, Penglin Ye, Urs Baltensperger, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Richard C. Flagan, Martin Gallagher, Armin Hansel, James N. Smith, António Tomé, Paul M. Winkler, Douglas Worsnop, Mikael Ehn, Mikko Sipilä, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Tuukka Petäjä, and Markku Kulmala
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 15181–15197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-15181-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-15181-2017, 2017
Karoliina Ignatius, Thomas B. Kristensen, Emma Järvinen, Leonid Nichman, Claudia Fuchs, Hamish Gordon, Paul Herenz, Christopher R. Hoyle, Jonathan Duplissy, Sarvesh Garimella, Antonio Dias, Carla Frege, Niko Höppel, Jasmin Tröstl, Robert Wagner, Chao Yan, Antonio Amorim, Urs Baltensperger, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Martin W. Gallagher, Jasper Kirkby, Markku Kulmala, Ottmar Möhler, Harald Saathoff, Martin Schnaiter, Antonio Tomé, Annele Virtanen, Douglas Worsnop, and Frank Stratmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 6495–6509, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6495-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6495-2016, 2016
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Viscous solid or semi-solid secondary organic aerosol (SOA) may influence cloud properties through ice nucleation in the atmosphere. Here, we observed heterogeneous ice nucleation of viscous α-pinene SOA at temperatures between −39 °C and −37.2 °C with ice saturation ratios significantly below the homogeneous freezing limit. Global modelling suggests that viscous biogenic SOA are present in regions where cirrus formation takes place and could contribute to the global ice nuclei budget.
Emma Järvinen, Karoliina Ignatius, Leonid Nichman, Thomas B. Kristensen, Claudia Fuchs, Christopher R. Hoyle, Niko Höppel, Joel C. Corbin, Jill Craven, Jonathan Duplissy, Sebastian Ehrhart, Imad El Haddad, Carla Frege, Hamish Gordon, Tuija Jokinen, Peter Kallinger, Jasper Kirkby, Alexei Kiselev, Karl-Heinz Naumann, Tuukka Petäjä, Tamara Pinterich, Andre S. H. Prevot, Harald Saathoff, Thea Schiebel, Kamalika Sengupta, Mario Simon, Jay G. Slowik, Jasmin Tröstl, Annele Virtanen, Paul Vochezer, Steffen Vogt, Andrea C. Wagner, Robert Wagner, Christina Williamson, Paul M. Winkler, Chao Yan, Urs Baltensperger, Neil M. Donahue, Rick C. Flagan, Martin Gallagher, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Frank Stratmann, Douglas R. Worsnop, Ottmar Möhler, Thomas Leisner, and Martin Schnaiter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 4423–4438, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4423-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4423-2016, 2016
Leonid Nichman, Claudia Fuchs, Emma Järvinen, Karoliina Ignatius, Niko Florian Höppel, Antonio Dias, Martin Heinritzi, Mario Simon, Jasmin Tröstl, Andrea Christine Wagner, Robert Wagner, Christina Williamson, Chao Yan, Paul James Connolly, James Robert Dorsey, Jonathan Duplissy, Sebastian Ehrhart, Carla Frege, Hamish Gordon, Christopher Robert Hoyle, Thomas Bjerring Kristensen, Gerhard Steiner, Neil McPherson Donahue, Richard Flagan, Martin William Gallagher, Jasper Kirkby, Ottmar Möhler, Harald Saathoff, Martin Schnaiter, Frank Stratmann, and António Tomé
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3651–3664, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3651-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3651-2016, 2016
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Processes in the atmosphere are often governed by the physical and chemical properties of small cloud particles. Ice, water, and mixed clouds, as well as viscous aerosols, were formed under controlled conditions at the CLOUD-CERN facility. The experimental results show a link between cloud particle properties and their unique optical fingerprints. The classification map presented here allows easier discrimination between various particles such as viscous organic aerosol, salt, ice, and liquid.
C. R. Hoyle, C. Fuchs, E. Järvinen, H. Saathoff, A. Dias, I. El Haddad, M. Gysel, S. C. Coburn, J. Tröstl, A.-K. Bernhammer, F. Bianchi, M. Breitenlechner, J. C. Corbin, J. Craven, N. M. Donahue, J. Duplissy, S. Ehrhart, C. Frege, H. Gordon, N. Höppel, M. Heinritzi, T. B. Kristensen, U. Molteni, L. Nichman, T. Pinterich, A. S. H. Prévôt, M. Simon, J. G. Slowik, G. Steiner, A. Tomé, A. L. Vogel, R. Volkamer, A. C. Wagner, R. Wagner, A. S. Wexler, C. Williamson, P. M. Winkler, C. Yan, A. Amorim, J. Dommen, J. Curtius, M. W. Gallagher, R. C. Flagan, A. Hansel, J. Kirkby, M. Kulmala, O. Möhler, F. Stratmann, D. R. Worsnop, and U. Baltensperger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 1693–1712, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-1693-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-1693-2016, 2016
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A significant portion of sulphate, an important constituent of atmospheric aerosols, is formed via the aqueous phase oxidation of sulphur dioxide by ozone. The rate of this reaction has previously only been measured over a relatively small temperature range. Here, we use the state of the art CLOUD chamber at CERN to perform the first measurements of this reaction rate in super-cooled droplets, confirming that the existing extrapolation of the reaction rate to sub-zero temperatures is accurate.
Mariya Petrenko, Ralph Kahn, Mian Chin, Susanne E. Bauer, Tommi Bergman, Huisheng Bian, Gabriele Curci, Ben Johnson, Johannes W. Kaiser, Zak Kipling, Harri Kokkola, Xiaohong Liu, Keren Mezuman, Tero Mielonen, Gunnar Myhre, Xiaohua Pan, Anna Protonotariou, Samuel Remy, Ragnhild Bieltvedt Skeie, Philip Stier, Toshihiko Takemura, Kostas Tsigaridis, Hailong Wang, Duncan Watson-Parris, and Kai Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1545–1567, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1545-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1545-2025, 2025
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We compared smoke plume simulations from 11 global models to each other and to satellite smoke amount observations aimed at constraining smoke source strength. In regions where plumes are thick and background aerosol is low, models and satellites compare well. However, the input emission inventory tends to underestimate in many places, and particle property and loss rate assumptions vary enormously among models, causing uncertainties that require systematic in situ measurements to resolve.
Xinyue Shao, Minghuai Wang, Xinyi Dong, Yaman Liu, Stephen R. Arnold, Leighton A. Regayre, Duseong S. Jo, Wenxiang Shen, Hao Wang, Man Yue, Jingyi Wang, Wenxin Zhang, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4135, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4135, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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This study uses a global chemistry-climate model to investigate how new particle formation (NPF) from highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) contributes to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in both preindustrial (PI) and present-day (PD) environments, and its impact on aerosol indirect radiative forcing. The findings highlight the crucial role of biogenic emissions in climate change, providing new insights for carbon-neutral scenarios and enhancing understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions.
Nicolas Emig, Annette K. Miltenberger, Peter M. Hoor, and Andreas Petzold
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3919, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3919, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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This study presents in situ observations of cirrus occurrence from aircraft measurements in the extra-tropical transition layer (ExTL) using simultaneous measurements from two platforms. Lagrangian diagnostics based on high-resolution ICON simulations show long residence times of the cirrus in stratospheric air allowing to separate different diabatic processes during transit. The findings suggest that radiative diabatic cloud processes significantly impact the tropopause thermodynamic structure.
Tim Lüttmer, Annette Miltenberger, and Peter Spichtinger
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-185, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-185, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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We investigate ice formation pathways in a warm conveyor belt case study. We employ a multi-phase microphysics scheme that distinguishes between ice from different nucleation processes. Ice crystals in the cirrus outflow mostly stem from in-situ formation. Hence they were formed directly from the vapor phase. Sedimentational redistribution modulates cirrus properties and leads to a disagreement between cirrus origin classifications based on thermodynamic history and nucleation processes.
Lauren R. Marshall, Anja Schmidt, Andrew P. Schurer, Nathan Luke Abraham, Lucie J. Lücke, Rob Wilson, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Gabriele C. Hegerl, Ben Johnson, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Esther C. Brady, Myriam Khodri, and Kohei Yoshida
Clim. Past, 21, 161–184, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-161-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-161-2025, 2025
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Large volcanic eruptions have caused temperature deviations over the past 1000 years; however, climate model results and reconstructions of surface cooling using tree rings do not match. We explore this mismatch using the latest models and find a better match to tree-ring reconstructions for some eruptions. Our results show that the way in which eruptions are simulated in models matters for the comparison to tree-rings, particularly regarding the spatial spread of volcanic aerosol.
Emma Sands, Ruth M. Doherty, Fiona M. O'Connor, Richard J. Pope, James Weber, and Daniel P. Grosvenor
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4014, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4014, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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We use satellite observations to quantify isoprene, formaldehyde and aerosol optical depth biases in UKESM1.1 and their sensitivity to process representation. The more detailed chemistry mechanism is particularly impactful by decreasing the isoprene and formaldehyde biases and reducing aerosol formation. Other processes have strong regional impacts. The new processes affect the present-day aerosol direct radiative effect (+0.17 W m-2), with implications for land use change forcing studies.
Weiyu Zhang, Kwinten Van Weverberg, Cyril J. Morcrette, Wuhu Feng, Kalli Furtado, Paul R. Field, Chih-Chieh Chen, Andrew Gettelman, Piers M. Forster, Daniel R. Marsh, and Alexandru Rap
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 473–489, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-473-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-473-2025, 2025
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Contrail cirrus is the largest, but also most uncertain, contribution of aviation to global warming. We evaluate, for the first time, the impact of the host climate model on contrail cirrus properties. Substantial differences exist between contrail cirrus formation, persistence, and radiative effects in the host climate models. Reliable contrail cirrus simulations require advanced representation of cloud optical properties and microphysics, which should be better constrained by observations.
Xinyi Huang, Paul R. Field, Benjamin J. Murray, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Floortje van den Heuvel, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4070, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4070, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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Cold-air outbreak (CAO) clouds play a vital role in climate prediction. This study explores the responses of CAO clouds to aerosols and ice production under different environmental conditions. We found that CAO cloud responses vary with cloud temperature and are strongly controlled by the liquid-ice partitioning in these clouds, suggesting the importance of good representations of cloud microphysics properties to predict the behaviours of CAO clouds in a warming climate.
Ross J. Herbert, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Kirsty J. Pringle, Stephen R. Arnold, Benjamin J. Murray, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 291–325, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, 2025
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Aerosol particles that help form ice in clouds vary in number and type around the world and with time. However, in many weather and climate models cloud ice is not linked to aerosols that are known to nucleate ice. Here we report the first steps towards representing ice-nucleating particles within the UK Earth System Model. We conclude that in addition to ice nucleation by sea spray and mineral components of soil dust, we also need to represent ice nucleation by the organic components of soils.
Huihui Wu, Fanny Peers, Jonathan W. Taylor, Chenjie Yu, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Jamie Trembath, Keith Bower, Jim M. Haywood, and Hugh Coe
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3975, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3975, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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This study investigates the transport history of African Biomass-Burning aerosols (BBAs) over the southeast Atlantic (SEA), and the relationship between transported BBAs and clouds around Ascension Island using in-situ airborne measurements. The work provides critical simplified parameterizations of aerosol-cloud interaction for improving the evaluation of radiative forcing over the SEA. It also identifies key entrainment regions for understanding the vertical transport process of African BBAs.
Cornelis Schwenk and Annette Miltenberger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14073–14099, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14073-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14073-2024, 2024
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Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) transport moisture into the upper atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas. This transport is not well understood, and the role of rapidly rising air is unclear. We simulate a WCB and look at fast- and slow-rising air to see how moisture is (differently) transported. We find that for fast-ascending air more ice particles reach higher into the atmosphere and that frozen cloud particles are removed differently than during slow ascent, which has more water vapour.
Erin N. Raif, Sarah L. Barr, Mark D. Tarn, James B. McQuaid, Martin I. Daily, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Keith N. Bower, Paul R. Field, Kenneth S. Carslaw, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14045–14072, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14045-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14045-2024, 2024
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Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) allow ice to form in clouds at temperatures warmer than −35°C. We measured INP concentrations over the Norwegian and Barents seas in weather events where cold air is ejected from the Arctic. These concentrations were among the highest measured in the Arctic. It is likely that the INPs were transported to the Arctic from distant regions. These results show it is important to consider hemispheric-scale INP processes to understand INP concentrations in the Arctic.
Pratapaditya Ghosh, Ian Boutle, Paul Field, Adrian Hill, Anthony Jones, Marie Mazoyer, Katherine J. Evans, Salil Mahajan, Hyun-Gyu Kang, Min Xu, Wei Zhang, Noah Asch, and Hamish Gordon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3376, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3376, 2024
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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We study aerosol-fog interactions near Paris using a weather and climate model with high spatial resolution. We show that our model can simulate fog lifecycle effectively. We find that the fog droplet number concentrations, the amount of liquid water in the fog, and the vertical structure of the fog are highly sensitive to the parameterization that simulates droplet formation and growth. The changes we propose could improve fog forecasts significantly without increasing computational costs.
Pratapaditya Ghosh, Ian Boutle, Paul Field, Adrian Hill, Marie Mazoyer, Katherine J. Evans, Salil Mahajan, Hyun-Gyu Kang, Min Xu, Wei Zhang, and Hamish Gordon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3397, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3397, 2024
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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We study the lifecycle of fog events in Europe using a weather and climate model. By incorporating droplet formation and growth driven by radiative cooling, our model better simulates the total liquid water in foggy atmospheric columns. We show that both adiabatic and radiative cooling play significant, often equally important roles in driving droplet formation and growth. We discuss strategies to address droplet number overpredictions, by improving model physics and addressing model artifacts.
Kadavathu Sreekumar Apsara, Jayakumar Aravindakshan, Anurose Theethai Jacob, Saji Mohandas, Paul Field, Hamish Gordan, Thara Prabhakaran, Mahen Konwar, and Vijapurap Srinivasa Prasad
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3538, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3538, 2024
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Science has made significant strides in weather prediction, especially for intense tropical rainfall that can lead to floods and landslides. Our study aims to improve monsoon rainfall forecasts by analyzing raindrop sizes. Using a new approach to model raindrop growth, we achieved a more accurate depiction of large rainfall events. These improvements can be generalized to enhance early warning systems, offering reliable predictions that help reduce risks from severe tropical weather events.
Masaru Yoshioka, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Ben B. B. Booth, Colin P. Morice, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13681–13692, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13681-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13681-2024, 2024
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A 2020 regulation has reduced sulfur emissions from shipping by about 80 %, leading to a decrease in atmospheric aerosols that have a cooling effect primarily by affecting cloud properties and amounts. Our climate model simulations predict a global temperature increase of 0.04 K over the next 3 decades as a result, which could contribute to surpassing the Paris Agreement's 1.5 °C target. Reduced aerosols may have also contributed to the recent temperature spikes.
Mike Bush, David L. A. Flack, Huw W. Lewis, Sylvia I. Bohnenstengel, Chris J. Short, Charmaine Franklin, Adrian P. Lock, Martin Best, Paul Field, Anne McCabe, Kwinten Van Weverberg, Segolene Berthou, Ian Boutle, Jennifer K. Brooke, Seb Cole, Shaun Cooper, Gareth Dow, John Edwards, Anke Finnenkoetter, Kalli Furtado, Kate Halladay, Kirsty Hanley, Margaret A. Hendry, Adrian Hill, Aravindakshan Jayakumar, Richard W. Jones, Humphrey Lean, Joshua C. K. Lee, Andy Malcolm, Marion Mittermaier, Saji Mohandas, Stuart Moore, Cyril Morcrette, Rachel North, Aurore Porson, Susan Rennie, Nigel Roberts, Belinda Roux, Claudio Sanchez, Chun-Hsu Su, Simon Tucker, Simon Vosper, David Walters, James Warner, Stuart Webster, Mark Weeks, Jonathan Wilkinson, Michael Whitall, Keith D. Williams, and Hugh Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-201, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-201, 2024
Preprint under review for GMD
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RAL configurations define settings for the Unified Model atmosphere and Joint UK Land Environment Simulator. The third version of the Regional Atmosphere and Land (RAL3) science configuration for kilometre and sub-km scale modelling represents a major advance compared to previous versions (RAL2) by delivering a common science definition for applications in tropical and mid-latitude regions. RAL3 has more realistic precipitation distributions and improved representation of clouds and visibility.
Natalie G. Ratcliffe, Claire L. Ryder, Nicolas Bellouin, Stephanie Woodward, Anthony Jones, Ben Johnson, Lisa-Maria Wieland, Maximilian Dollner, Josef Gasteiger, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12161–12181, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, 2024
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Large mineral dust particles are more abundant in the atmosphere than expected and have different impacts on the environment than small particles, which are better represented in climate models. We use aircraft measurements to assess a climate model representation of large-dust transport. We find that the model underestimates the amount of large dust at all stages of transport and that fast removal of the large particles increases this underestimation with distance from the Sahara.
Pratapaditya Ghosh, Katherine J. Evans, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Hyun-Gyu Kang, Salil Mahajan, Min Xu, Wei Zhang, and Hamish Gordon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2423, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2423, 2024
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The most popular algorithm for calculating cloud droplet number concentrations in climate models is sensitive to parameters that control simulated aerosol particle number concentrations at different sizes. We recommend small modifications to functions in the algorithm to improve its performance. Implementing our changes in the UK Met Office climate model reduced average bias in simulated global droplet number concentrations, leading to more reflected solar radiation and a net cooling effect.
Xinyue Shao, Minghuai Wang, Xinyi Dong, Yaman Liu, Wenxiang Shen, Stephen R. Arnold, Leighton A. Regayre, Meinrat O. Andreae, Mira L. Pöhlker, Duseong S. Jo, Man Yue, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11365–11389, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11365-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11365-2024, 2024
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Highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) play an important role in atmospheric new particle formation (NPF). By semi-explicitly coupling the chemical mechanism of HOMs and a comprehensive nucleation scheme in a global climate model, the updated model shows better agreement with measurements of nucleation rate, growth rate, and NPF event frequency. Our results reveal that HOM-driven NPF leads to a considerable increase in particle and cloud condensation nuclei burden globally.
August Mikkelsen, Daniel T. McCoy, Trude Eidhammer, Andrew Gettelman, Ci Song, Hamish Gordon, and Isabel L. McCoy
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2158, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2158, 2024
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The largest uncertainty in inferring the magnitude of future warming comes from ambiguity in the strength of cooling in the historical record from aerosols. Aerosols are small liquid and solid particles that are important for cloud formation. The interactions between aerosols and clouds are complex and difficult to observe. In this study, we use surface observations of cloud and precipitation properties to constrain a climate model and interpret causality in complex aerosol-cloud interactions.
Richard J. Pope, Fiona M. O'Connor, Mohit Dalvi, Brian J. Kerridge, Richard Siddans, Barry G. Latter, Brice Barret, Eric Le Flochmoen, Anne Boynard, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Wuhu Feng, Matilda A. Pimlott, Sandip S. Dhomse, Christian Retscher, Catherine Wespes, and Richard Rigby
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9177–9195, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9177-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9177-2024, 2024
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Ozone is a potent air pollutant in the lower troposphere, with adverse impacts on human health. Satellite records of tropospheric ozone currently show large-scale inconsistencies in long-term trends. Our detailed study of the potential factors (e.g. satellite errors, where the satellite can observe ozone) potentially driving these inconsistencies found that, in North America, Europe, and East Asia, the underlying trends are typically small with large uncertainties.
Manfred Wendisch, Susanne Crewell, André Ehrlich, Andreas Herber, Benjamin Kirbus, Christof Lüpkes, Mario Mech, Steven J. Abel, Elisa F. Akansu, Felix Ament, Clémantyne Aubry, Sebastian Becker, Stephan Borrmann, Heiko Bozem, Marlen Brückner, Hans-Christian Clemen, Sandro Dahlke, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Julien Delanoë, Elena De La Torre Castro, Henning Dorff, Regis Dupuy, Oliver Eppers, Florian Ewald, Geet George, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Sarah Grawe, Silke Groß, Jörg Hartmann, Silvia Henning, Lutz Hirsch, Evelyn Jäkel, Philipp Joppe, Olivier Jourdan, Zsofia Jurányi, Michail Karalis, Mona Kellermann, Marcus Klingebiel, Michael Lonardi, Johannes Lucke, Anna E. Luebke, Maximilian Maahn, Nina Maherndl, Marion Maturilli, Bernhard Mayer, Johanna Mayer, Stephan Mertes, Janosch Michaelis, Michel Michalkov, Guillaume Mioche, Manuel Moser, Hanno Müller, Roel Neggers, Davide Ori, Daria Paul, Fiona M. Paulus, Christian Pilz, Felix Pithan, Mira Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Maximilian Ringel, Nils Risse, Gregory C. Roberts, Sophie Rosenburg, Johannes Röttenbacher, Janna Rückert, Michael Schäfer, Jonas Schaefer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Jörg Schmidt, Sebastian Schmidt, Johannes Schneider, Sabrina Schnitt, Anja Schwarz, Holger Siebert, Harald Sodemann, Tim Sperzel, Gunnar Spreen, Bjorn Stevens, Frank Stratmann, Gunilla Svensson, Christian Tatzelt, Thomas Tuch, Timo Vihma, Christiane Voigt, Lea Volkmer, Andreas Walbröl, Anna Weber, Birgit Wehner, Bruno Wetzel, Martin Wirth, and Tobias Zinner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8865–8892, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8865-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8865-2024, 2024
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The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe. Warm-air intrusions (WAIs) into the Arctic may play an important role in explaining this phenomenon. Cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) out of the Arctic may link the Arctic climate changes to mid-latitude weather. In our article, we describe how to observe air mass transformations during CAOs and WAIs using three research aircraft instrumented with state-of-the-art remote-sensing and in situ measurement devices.
Edward Groot, Patrick Kuntze, Annette Miltenberger, and Holger Tost
Weather Clim. Dynam., 5, 779–803, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-779-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-779-2024, 2024
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Deep convective clouds (thunderstorms), which may cause severe weather, tend to coherently organise into structured cloud systems. Accurate representation of these systems in models is difficult due to their complex dynamics and, in numerical simulations, the dependence of their dynamics on resolution. Here, the effect of convective organisation and geometry on their outflow winds (altitudes of 7–14 km) is investigated. Representation of their dynamics and outflows improves at higher resolution.
Declan L. Finney, Alan M. Blyth, Martin Gallagher, Huihui Wu, Graeme J. Nott, Michael I. Biggerstaff, Richard G. Sonnenfeld, Martin Daily, Dan Walker, David Dufton, Keith Bower, Steven Böing, Thomas Choularton, Jonathan Crosier, James Groves, Paul R. Field, Hugh Coe, Benjamin J. Murray, Gary Lloyd, Nicholas A. Marsden, Michael Flynn, Kezhen Hu, Navaneeth M. Thamban, Paul I. Williams, Paul J. Connolly, James B. McQuaid, Joseph Robinson, Zhiqiang Cui, Ralph R. Burton, Gordon Carrie, Robert Moore, Steven J. Abel, Dave Tiddeman, and Graydon Aulich
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 2141–2163, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2141-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2141-2024, 2024
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The DCMEX (Deep Convective Microphysics Experiment) project undertook an aircraft- and ground-based measurement campaign of New Mexico deep convective clouds during July–August 2022. The campaign coordinated a broad range of instrumentation measuring aerosol, cloud physics, radar signals, thermodynamics, dynamics, electric fields, and weather. The project's objectives included the utilisation of these data with satellite observations to study the anvil cloud radiative effect.
Rolf Müller, Ulrich Pöschl, Thomas Koop, Thomas Peter, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15445–15453, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15445-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15445-2023, 2023
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Paul J. Crutzen was a pioneer in atmospheric sciences and a kind-hearted, humorous person with empathy for the private lives of his colleagues and students. He made fundamental scientific contributions to a wide range of scientific topics in all parts of the atmosphere. Paul was among the founders of the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. His work will continue to be a guide for generations of scientists and environmental policymakers to come.
Hamza Ahsan, Hailong Wang, Jingbo Wu, Mingxuan Wu, Steven J. Smith, Susanne Bauer, Harrison Suchyta, Dirk Olivié, Gunnar Myhre, Hitoshi Matsui, Huisheng Bian, Jean-François Lamarque, Ken Carslaw, Larry Horowitz, Leighton Regayre, Mian Chin, Michael Schulz, Ragnhild Bieltvedt Skeie, Toshihiko Takemura, and Vaishali Naik
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14779–14799, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14779-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14779-2023, 2023
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We examine the impact of the assumed effective height of SO2 injection, SO2 and BC emission seasonality, and the assumed fraction of SO2 emissions injected as SO4 on climate and chemistry model results. We find that the SO2 injection height has a large impact on surface SO2 concentrations and, in some models, radiative flux. These assumptions are a
hiddensource of inter-model variability and may be leading to bias in some climate model results.
Matthew Henry, Jim Haywood, Andy Jones, Mohit Dalvi, Alice Wells, Daniele Visioni, Ewa M. Bednarz, Douglas G. MacMartin, Walker Lee, and Mari R. Tye
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13369–13385, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13369-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13369-2023, 2023
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Solar climate interventions, such as injecting sulfur in the stratosphere, may be used to offset some of the adverse impacts of global warming. We use two independently developed Earth system models to assess the uncertainties around stratospheric sulfur injections. The injection locations and amounts are optimized to maintain the same pattern of surface temperature. While both models show reduced warming, the change in rainfall patterns (even without sulfur injections) is uncertain.
Angela Mynard, Joss Kent, Eleanor R. Smith, Andy Wilson, Kirsty Wivell, Noel Nelson, Matthew Hort, James Bowles, David Tiddeman, Justin M. Langridge, Benjamin Drummond, and Steven J. Abel
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 4229–4261, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4229-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4229-2023, 2023
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Air quality models are key in understanding complex air pollution processes and assist in developing strategies to mitigate the impacts of air pollution. The ability of regional air quality models to skilfully represent pollutant distributions aloft is important to enabling their skilful prediction at the surface. To assist in model development and evaluation, a long-term, quality-assured dataset of the 3-D distribution of key pollutants was collected over the United Kingdom (2019–2022).
Leighton A. Regayre, Lucia Deaconu, Daniel P. Grosvenor, David M. H. Sexton, Christopher Symonds, Tom Langton, Duncan Watson-Paris, Jane P. Mulcahy, Kirsty J. Pringle, Mark Richardson, Jill S. Johnson, John W. Rostron, Hamish Gordon, Grenville Lister, Philip Stier, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8749–8768, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8749-2023, 2023
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Aerosol forcing of Earth’s energy balance has persisted as a major cause of uncertainty in climate simulations over generations of climate model development. We show that structural deficiencies in a climate model are exposed by comprehensively exploring parametric uncertainty and that these deficiencies limit how much the model uncertainty can be reduced through observational constraint. This provides a future pathway towards building models with greater physical realism and lower uncertainty.
Annika Oertel, Annette K. Miltenberger, Christian M. Grams, and Corinna Hoose
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8553–8581, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8553-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8553-2023, 2023
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Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) are cloud- and precipitation-producing airstreams in extratropical cyclones that are important for the large-scale flow and cloud radiative forcing. We analyze cloud formation processes during WCB ascent in a two-moment microphysics scheme. Quantification of individual diabatic heating rates shows the importance of condensation, vapor deposition, rain evaporation, melting, and cloud-top radiative cooling for total heating and WCB-related potential vorticity structure.
Chenwei Fang, Jim M. Haywood, Ju Liang, Ben T. Johnson, Ying Chen, and Bin Zhu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8341–8368, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8341-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8341-2023, 2023
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The responses of Asian summer monsoon duration and intensity to air pollution mitigation are identified given the net-zero future. We show that reducing scattering aerosols makes the rainy season longer and stronger across South Asia and East Asia but that absorbing aerosol reduction has the opposite effect. Our results hint at distinct monsoon responses to emission controls that target different aerosols.
Daniel P. Grosvenor and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6743–6773, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6743-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6743-2023, 2023
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We determine what causes long-term trends in short-wave (SW) radiative fluxes in two climate models. A positive trend occurs between 1850 and 1970 (increasing SW reflection) and a negative trend between 1970 and 2014; the pre-1970 positive trend is mainly driven by an increase in cloud droplet number concentrations due to increases in aerosol, and the 1970–2014 trend is driven by a decrease in cloud fraction, which we attribute to changes in clouds caused by greenhouse gas-induced warming.
Ernesto Reyes-Villegas, Douglas Lowe, Jill S. Johnson, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Eoghan Darbyshire, Michael Flynn, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Ying Chen, Oliver Wild, Scott Archer-Nicholls, Alex Archibald, Siddhartha Singh, Manish Shrivastava, Rahul A. Zaveri, Vikas Singh, Gufran Beig, Ranjeet Sokhi, and Gordon McFiggans
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5763–5782, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5763-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5763-2023, 2023
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Organic aerosols (OAs), their sources and their processes remain poorly understood. The volatility basis set (VBS) approach, implemented in air quality models such as WRF-Chem, can be a useful tool to describe primary OA (POA) production and aging. However, the main disadvantage is its complexity. We used a Gaussian process simulator to reproduce model results and to estimate the sources of model uncertainty. We do this by comparing the outputs with OA observations made at Delhi, India, in 2018.
Gillian Young McCusker, Jutta Vüllers, Peggy Achtert, Paul Field, Jonathan J. Day, Richard Forbes, Ruth Price, Ewan O'Connor, Michael Tjernström, John Prytherch, Ryan Neely III, and Ian M. Brooks
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4819–4847, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4819-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4819-2023, 2023
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In this study, we show that recent versions of two atmospheric models – the Unified Model and Integrated Forecasting System – overestimate Arctic cloud fraction within the lower troposphere by comparison with recent remote-sensing measurements made during the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition. The overabundance of cloud is interlinked with the modelled thermodynamic structure, with strong negative temperature biases coincident with these overestimated cloud layers.
Xuemei Wang, Hamish Gordon, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Meinrat O. Andreae, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4431–4461, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4431-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4431-2023, 2023
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New particle formation in the upper troposphere is important for the global boundary layer aerosol population, and they can be transported downward in Amazonia. We use a global and a regional model to quantify the number of aerosols that are formed at high altitude and transported downward in a 1000 km region. We find that the majority of the aerosols are from outside the region. This suggests that the 1000 km region is unlikely to be a
closed loopfor aerosol formation, transport and growth.
Ruth Price, Andrea Baccarini, Julia Schmale, Paul Zieger, Ian M. Brooks, Paul Field, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2927–2961, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2927-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2927-2023, 2023
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Arctic clouds can control how much energy is absorbed by the surface or reflected back to space. Using a computer model of the atmosphere we investigated the formation of atmospheric particles that allow cloud droplets to form. We found that particles formed aloft are transported to the lowest part of the Arctic atmosphere and that this is a key source of particles. Our results have implications for the way Arctic clouds will behave in the future as climate change continues to impact the region.
Leighton A. Regayre, Lucia Deaconu, Daniel P. Grosvenor, David Sexton, Christopher C. Symonds, Tom Langton, Duncan Watson-Paris, Jane P. Mulcahy, Kirsty J. Pringle, Mark Richardson, Jill S. Johnson, John Rostron, Hamish Gordon, Grenville Lister, Philip Stier, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1330, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1330, 2022
Preprint archived
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We show that potential structural deficiencies in a climate model can be exposed by comprehensively exploring its parametric uncertainty, and that these deficiencies limit how much the model uncertainty can be reduced through observational constraint. Combined consideration of parametric and structural uncertainties provides a future pathway towards building models that have greater physical realism and lower uncertainty.
Paul A. Barrett, Steven J. Abel, Hugh Coe, Ian Crawford, Amie Dobracki, James Haywood, Steve Howell, Anthony Jones, Justin Langridge, Greg M. McFarquhar, Graeme J. Nott, Hannah Price, Jens Redemann, Yohei Shinozuka, Kate Szpek, Jonathan W. Taylor, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, Paquita Zuidema, Stéphane Bauguitte, Ryan Bennett, Keith Bower, Hong Chen, Sabrina Cochrane, Michael Cotterell, Nicholas Davies, David Delene, Connor Flynn, Andrew Freedman, Steffen Freitag, Siddhant Gupta, David Noone, Timothy B. Onasch, James Podolske, Michael R. Poellot, Sebastian Schmidt, Stephen Springston, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Jamie Trembath, Alan Vance, Maria A. Zawadowicz, and Jianhao Zhang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 6329–6371, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-6329-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-6329-2022, 2022
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To better understand weather and climate, it is vital to go into the field and collect observations. Often measurements take place in isolation, but here we compared data from two aircraft and one ground-based site. This was done in order to understand how well measurements made on one platform compared to those made on another. Whilst this is easy to do in a controlled laboratory setting, it is more challenging in the real world, and so these comparisons are as valuable as they are rare.
Ville Leinonen, Harri Kokkola, Taina Yli-Juuti, Tero Mielonen, Thomas Kühn, Tuomo Nieminen, Simo Heikkinen, Tuuli Miinalainen, Tommi Bergman, Ken Carslaw, Stefano Decesari, Markus Fiebig, Tareq Hussein, Niku Kivekäs, Radovan Krejci, Markku Kulmala, Ari Leskinen, Andreas Massling, Nikos Mihalopoulos, Jane P. Mulcahy, Steffen M. Noe, Twan van Noije, Fiona M. O'Connor, Colin O'Dowd, Dirk Olivie, Jakob B. Pernov, Tuukka Petäjä, Øyvind Seland, Michael Schulz, Catherine E. Scott, Henrik Skov, Erik Swietlicki, Thomas Tuch, Alfred Wiedensohler, Annele Virtanen, and Santtu Mikkonen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12873–12905, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12873-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12873-2022, 2022
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We provide the first extensive comparison of detailed aerosol size distribution trends between in situ observations from Europe and five different earth system models. We investigated aerosol modes (nucleation, Aitken, and accumulation) separately and were able to show the differences between measured and modeled trends and especially their seasonal patterns. The differences in model results are likely due to complex effects of several processes instead of certain specific model features.
Johannes Quaas, Hailing Jia, Chris Smith, Anna Lea Albright, Wenche Aas, Nicolas Bellouin, Olivier Boucher, Marie Doutriaux-Boucher, Piers M. Forster, Daniel Grosvenor, Stuart Jenkins, Zbigniew Klimont, Norman G. Loeb, Xiaoyan Ma, Vaishali Naik, Fabien Paulot, Philip Stier, Martin Wild, Gunnar Myhre, and Michael Schulz
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12221–12239, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022, 2022
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Pollution particles cool climate and offset part of the global warming. However, they are washed out by rain and thus their effect responds quickly to changes in emissions. We show multiple datasets to demonstrate that aerosol emissions and their concentrations declined in many regions influenced by human emissions, as did the effects on clouds. Consequently, the cooling impact on the Earth energy budget became smaller. This change in trend implies a relative warming.
Michael S. Diamond, Pablo E. Saide, Paquita Zuidema, Andrew S. Ackerman, Sarah J. Doherty, Ann M. Fridlind, Hamish Gordon, Calvin Howes, Jan Kazil, Takanobu Yamaguchi, Jianhao Zhang, Graham Feingold, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12113–12151, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12113-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12113-2022, 2022
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Smoke from southern Africa blankets the southeast Atlantic from June-October, overlying a major transition region between overcast and scattered clouds. The smoke affects Earth's radiation budget by absorbing sunlight and changing cloud properties. We investigate these effects in regional climate and large eddy simulation models based on international field campaigns. We find that large-scale circulation changes more strongly affect cloud transitions than smoke microphysical effects in our case.
Qirui Zhong, Nick Schutgens, Guido van der Werf, Twan van Noije, Kostas Tsigaridis, Susanne E. Bauer, Tero Mielonen, Alf Kirkevåg, Øyvind Seland, Harri Kokkola, Ramiro Checa-Garcia, David Neubauer, Zak Kipling, Hitoshi Matsui, Paul Ginoux, Toshihiko Takemura, Philippe Le Sager, Samuel Rémy, Huisheng Bian, Mian Chin, Kai Zhang, Jialei Zhu, Svetlana G. Tsyro, Gabriele Curci, Anna Protonotariou, Ben Johnson, Joyce E. Penner, Nicolas Bellouin, Ragnhild B. Skeie, and Gunnar Myhre
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 11009–11032, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11009-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11009-2022, 2022
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Aerosol optical depth (AOD) errors for biomass burning aerosol (BBA) are evaluated in 18 global models against satellite datasets. Notwithstanding biases in satellite products, they allow model evaluations. We observe large and diverse model biases due to errors in BBA. Further interpretations of AOD diversities suggest large biases exist in key processes for BBA which require better constraining. These results can contribute to further model improvement and development.
Amy H. Peace, Ben B. B. Booth, Leighton A. Regayre, Ken S. Carslaw, David M. H. Sexton, Céline J. W. Bonfils, and John W. Rostron
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1215–1232, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1215-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1215-2022, 2022
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Anthropogenic aerosol emissions have been linked to driving climate responses such as shifts in the location of tropical rainfall. However, the interaction of aerosols with climate remains one of the most uncertain aspects of climate modelling and limits our ability to predict future climate change. We use an ensemble of climate model simulations to investigate what impact the large uncertainty in how aerosols interact with climate has on predicting future tropical rainfall shifts.
Haochi Che, Philip Stier, Duncan Watson-Parris, Hamish Gordon, and Lucia Deaconu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10789–10807, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10789-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10789-2022, 2022
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Extensive stratocumulus clouds over the south-eastern Atlantic (SEA) can lead to a cooling effect on the climate. A key pathway by which aerosols affect cloud properties is by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Here, we investigated the source attribution of CCN in the SEA as well as the cloud responses. Our results show that aerosol nucleation contributes most to CCN in the marine boundary layer. In terms of emissions, anthropogenic sources contribute most to the CCN and cloud droplets.
Alexander D. Harrison, Daniel O'Sullivan, Michael P. Adams, Grace C. E. Porter, Edmund Blades, Cherise Brathwaite, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Cassandra Gaston, Rachel Hawker, Ovid O. Krüger, Leslie Neve, Mira L. Pöhlker, Christopher Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Andrea Sealy, Peter Sealy, Mark D. Tarn, Shanice Whitehall, James B. McQuaid, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Joseph M. Prospero, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9663–9680, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9663-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9663-2022, 2022
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The formation of ice in clouds fundamentally alters cloud properties; hence it is important we understand the special aerosol particles that can nucleate ice when immersed in supercooled cloud droplets. In this paper we show that African desert dust that has travelled across the Atlantic to the Caribbean nucleates ice much less well than we might have expected.
Jim M. Haywood, Andy Jones, Ben T. Johnson, and William McFarlane Smith
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 6135–6150, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-6135-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-6135-2022, 2022
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Simulations are presented investigating the influence of moderately absorbing aerosol in the stratosphere to combat the impacts of climate change. A number of detrimental impacts are noted compared to sulfate aerosol, including (i) reduced cooling efficiency, (ii) increased deficits in global precipitation, (iii) delays in the recovery of the stratospheric ozone hole, and (iv) disruption of the stratospheric circulation and the wintertime storm tracks that impact European precipitation.
Davide Zanchettin, Claudia Timmreck, Myriam Khodri, Anja Schmidt, Matthew Toohey, Manabu Abe, Slimane Bekki, Jason Cole, Shih-Wei Fang, Wuhu Feng, Gabriele Hegerl, Ben Johnson, Nicolas Lebas, Allegra N. LeGrande, Graham W. Mann, Lauren Marshall, Landon Rieger, Alan Robock, Sara Rubinetti, Kostas Tsigaridis, and Helen Weierbach
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2265–2292, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2265-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2265-2022, 2022
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This paper provides metadata and first analyses of the volc-pinatubo-full experiment of CMIP6-VolMIP. Results from six Earth system models reveal significant differences in radiative flux anomalies that trace back to different implementations of volcanic forcing. Surface responses are in contrast overall consistent across models, reflecting the large spread due to internal variability. A second phase of VolMIP shall consider both aspects toward improved protocol for volc-pinatubo-full.
Kalli Furtado and Paul Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 3391–3407, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3391-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3391-2022, 2022
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The complex processes involved mean that no simple answer to this
question has so far been discovered: do aerosols increase or decrease precipitation? Using high-resolution weather simulations, we find a self-similar property of rainfall that is not affected by aerosols. Using this invariant, we can collapse all our simulations to a single curve. So, although aerosol effects on rain are many, there may be a universal constraint on the number of degrees of freedom needed to represent them.
Zhiqiang Cui, Alan Blyth, Yahui Huang, Gary Lloyd, Thomas Choularton, Keith Bower, Paul Field, Rachel Hawker, and Lindsay Bennett
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1649–1667, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1649-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1649-2022, 2022
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High concentrations of ice particles were observed at temperatures greater than about –8 C. The default scheme of the secondary ice production cannot explain the high concentrations. Relaxing the conditions for secondary ice production or considering dust aerosol alone is insufficient to produce the observed amount of ice particles. It is likely that multi-thermals play an important role in producing very high concentrations of secondary ice particles in some tropical clouds.
Stefan Niebler, Annette Miltenberger, Bertil Schmidt, and Peter Spichtinger
Weather Clim. Dynam., 3, 113–137, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-113-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-113-2022, 2022
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We use machine learning to create a network that detects and classifies four types of synoptic-scale weather fronts from ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis data. We present an application of our method, showing its use case in a scientific context. Additionally, our results show that multiple sources of training data are necessary to perform well on different regions, implying differences within those regions. Qualitative evaluation shows that the results are physically plausible.
Matthew W. Christensen, Andrew Gettelman, Jan Cermak, Guy Dagan, Michael Diamond, Alyson Douglas, Graham Feingold, Franziska Glassmeier, Tom Goren, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Edward Gryspeerdt, Ralph Kahn, Zhanqing Li, Po-Lun Ma, Florent Malavelle, Isabel L. McCoy, Daniel T. McCoy, Greg McFarquhar, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Sandip Pal, Anna Possner, Adam Povey, Johannes Quaas, Daniel Rosenfeld, Anja Schmidt, Roland Schrödner, Armin Sorooshian, Philip Stier, Velle Toll, Duncan Watson-Parris, Robert Wood, Mingxi Yang, and Tianle Yuan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 641–674, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-641-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-641-2022, 2022
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Trace gases and aerosols (tiny airborne particles) are released from a variety of point sources around the globe. Examples include volcanoes, industrial chimneys, forest fires, and ship stacks. These sources provide opportunistic experiments with which to quantify the role of aerosols in modifying cloud properties. We review the current state of understanding on the influence of aerosol on climate built from the wide range of natural and anthropogenic laboratories investigated in recent decades.
Sarah J. Doherty, Pablo E. Saide, Paquita Zuidema, Yohei Shinozuka, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Hamish Gordon, Marc Mallet, Kerry Meyer, David Painemal, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, James R. Podolske, Sharon P. Burton, Richard A. Ferrare, Calvin Howes, Pierre Nabat, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Kristina Pistone, Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Robert Wood, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1–46, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, 2022
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Between July and October, biomass burning smoke is advected over the southeastern Atlantic Ocean, leading to climate forcing. Model calculations of forcing by this plume vary significantly in both magnitude and sign. This paper compares aerosol and cloud properties observed during three NASA ORACLES field campaigns to the same in four models. It quantifies modeled biases in properties key to aerosol direct radiative forcing and evaluates how these biases propagate to biases in forcing.
Rachel E. Hawker, Annette K. Miltenberger, Jill S. Johnson, Jonathan M. Wilkinson, Adrian A. Hill, Ben J. Shipway, Paul R. Field, Benjamin J. Murray, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17315–17343, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17315-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17315-2021, 2021
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We find that ice-nucleating particles (INPs), aerosols that can initiate the freezing of cloud droplets, cause substantial changes to the properties of radiatively important convectively generated anvil cirrus. The number concentration of INPs had a large effect on ice crystal number concentration while the INP temperature dependence controlled ice crystal size and cloud fraction. The results indicate information on INP number and source is necessary for the representation of cloud glaciation.
Anthony C. Jones, Adrian Hill, Samuel Remy, N. Luke Abraham, Mohit Dalvi, Catherine Hardacre, Alan J. Hewitt, Ben Johnson, Jane P. Mulcahy, and Steven T. Turnock
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15901–15927, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15901-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15901-2021, 2021
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Ammonium nitrate is hard to model because it forms and evaporates rapidly. One approach is to relate its equilibrium concentration to temperature, humidity, and the amount of nitric acid and ammonia gases. Using this approach, we limit the rate at which equilibrium is reached using various condensation rates in a climate model. We show that ammonium nitrate concentrations are highly sensitive to the condensation rate. Our results will help improve the representation of nitrate in climate models.
Heather Guy, Ian M. Brooks, Ken S. Carslaw, Benjamin J. Murray, Von P. Walden, Matthew D. Shupe, Claire Pettersen, David D. Turner, Christopher J. Cox, William D. Neff, Ralf Bennartz, and Ryan R. Neely III
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15351–15374, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15351-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15351-2021, 2021
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We present the first full year of surface aerosol number concentration measurements from the central Greenland Ice Sheet. Aerosol concentrations here have a distinct seasonal cycle from those at lower-altitude Arctic sites, which is driven by large-scale atmospheric circulation. Our results can be used to help understand the role aerosols might play in Greenland surface melt through the modification of cloud properties. This is crucial in a rapidly changing region where observations are sparse.
Mao Xiao, Christopher R. Hoyle, Lubna Dada, Dominik Stolzenburg, Andreas Kürten, Mingyi Wang, Houssni Lamkaddam, Olga Garmash, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Andrea Baccarini, Mario Simon, Xu-Cheng He, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Lauri R. Ahonen, Rima Baalbaki, Paulus S. Bauer, Lisa Beck, David Bell, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Dexian Chen, Randall Chiu, António Dias, Jonathan Duplissy, Henning Finkenzeller, Hamish Gordon, Victoria Hofbauer, Changhyuk Kim, Theodore K. Koenig, Janne Lampilahti, Chuan Ping Lee, Zijun Li, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Ruby Marten, Serge Mathot, Roy L. Mauldin, Wei Nie, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Veronika Pospisilova, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti Rissanen, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, António Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Andrea C. Wagner, Robert Wagner, Yonghong Wang, Lena Weitz, Daniela Wimmer, Yusheng Wu, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qing Ye, Qiaozhi Zha, Xueqin Zhou, Antonio Amorim, Ken Carslaw, Joachim Curtius, Armin Hansel, Rainer Volkamer, Paul M. Winkler, Richard C. Flagan, Markku Kulmala, Douglas R. Worsnop, Jasper Kirkby, Neil M. Donahue, Urs Baltensperger, Imad El Haddad, and Josef Dommen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14275–14291, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14275-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14275-2021, 2021
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Experiments at CLOUD show that in polluted environments new particle formation (NPF) is largely driven by the formation of sulfuric acid–base clusters, stabilized by amines, high ammonia concentrations or lower temperatures. While oxidation products of aromatics can nucleate, they play a minor role in urban NPF. Our experiments span 4 orders of magnitude variation of observed NPF rates in ambient conditions. We provide a framework based on NPF and growth rates to interpret ambient observations.
Ramiro Checa-Garcia, Yves Balkanski, Samuel Albani, Tommi Bergman, Ken Carslaw, Anne Cozic, Chris Dearden, Beatrice Marticorena, Martine Michou, Twan van Noije, Pierre Nabat, Fiona M. O'Connor, Dirk Olivié, Joseph M. Prospero, Philippe Le Sager, Michael Schulz, and Catherine Scott
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10295–10335, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10295-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10295-2021, 2021
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Thousands of tons of dust are emitted into the atmosphere every year, producing important impacts on the Earth system. However, current global climate models are not yet able to reproduce dust emissions, transport and depositions with the desirable accuracy. Our study analyses five different Earth system models to report aspects to be improved to reproduce better available observations, increase the consistency between models and therefore decrease the current uncertainties.
Vidya Varma, Olaf Morgenstern, Kalli Furtado, Paul Field, and Jonny Williams
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-438, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-438, 2021
Revised manuscript not accepted
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We introduce a simple parametrisation whereby the immersion freezing temperature in the model is linked to the mineral dust distribution through a diagnostic function, thus invoking regional differences in the nucleation temperatures instead of the global default value of −10 °C. This provides a functionality to mimic the role of Ice Nucleating Particles in the atmosphere on influencing the short-wave radiation over the Southern Ocean region by impacting the cloud phase.
Rachel E. Hawker, Annette K. Miltenberger, Jonathan M. Wilkinson, Adrian A. Hill, Ben J. Shipway, Zhiqiang Cui, Richard J. Cotton, Ken S. Carslaw, Paul R. Field, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 5439–5461, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5439-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5439-2021, 2021
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The impact of aerosols on clouds is a large source of uncertainty for future climate projections. Our results show that the radiative properties of a complex convective cloud field in the Saharan outflow region are sensitive to the temperature dependence of ice-nucleating particle concentrations. This means that differences in the aerosol source or composition, for the same aerosol size distribution, can cause differences in the outgoing radiation from regions dominated by tropical convection.
Ananth Ranjithkumar, Hamish Gordon, Christina Williamson, Andrew Rollins, Kirsty Pringle, Agnieszka Kupc, Nathan Luke Abraham, Charles Brock, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 4979–5014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4979-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4979-2021, 2021
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The effect aerosols have on climate can be better understood by studying their vertical and spatial distribution throughout the atmosphere. We use observation data from the ATom campaign and evaluate the vertical profile of aerosol number concentration, sulfur dioxide and condensation sink using the UKESM (UK Earth System Model). We identify uncertainties in key atmospheric processes that help improve their theoretical representation in global climate models.
Annette K. Miltenberger and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 3627–3642, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-3627-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-3627-2021, 2021
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The formation of ice in clouds is an important processes in mixed-phase and ice-phase clouds. However, the representation of ice formation in numerical models is highly uncertain. In the last decade, several new parameterizations for heterogeneous freezing have been proposed. Here, we investigate the impact of the parameterization choice on the representation of the convective cloud field and compare the impact to that of initial condition uncertainty.
Fanny Peers, Peter Francis, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Keith N. Bower, Michael I. Cotterell, Ian Crawford, Nicholas W. Davies, Cathryn Fox, Stuart Fox, Justin M. Langridge, Kerry G. Meyer, Steven E. Platnick, Kate Szpek, and Jim M. Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 3235–3254, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-3235-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-3235-2021, 2021
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Satellite observations at high temporal resolution are a valuable asset to monitor the transport of biomass burning plumes and the cloud diurnal cycle in the South Atlantic, but they need to be validated. Cloud and above-cloud aerosol properties retrieved from SEVIRI are compared against MODIS and measurements from the CLARIFY-2017 campaign. While some systematic differences are observed between SEVIRI and MODIS, the overall agreement in the cloud and aerosol properties is very satisfactory.
Kamalika Sengupta, Kirsty Pringle, Jill S. Johnson, Carly Reddington, Jo Browse, Catherine E. Scott, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 2693–2723, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2693-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2693-2021, 2021
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Global models consistently underestimate atmospheric secondary organic aerosol (SOA), which has significant climatic implications. We use a perturbed parameter model ensemble and ground-based observations to reduce the uncertainty in modelling SOA formation from oxidation of volatile organic compounds. We identify plausible parameter spaces for the yields of extremely low-volatility, low-volatility, and semi-volatile organic compounds based on model–observation match for three key model outputs.
Fiona M. O'Connor, N. Luke Abraham, Mohit Dalvi, Gerd A. Folberth, Paul T. Griffiths, Catherine Hardacre, Ben T. Johnson, Ron Kahana, James Keeble, Byeonghyeon Kim, Olaf Morgenstern, Jane P. Mulcahy, Mark Richardson, Eddy Robertson, Jeongbyn Seo, Sungbo Shim, João C. Teixeira, Steven T. Turnock, Jonny Williams, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Stephanie Woodward, and Guang Zeng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1211–1243, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1211-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1211-2021, 2021
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This paper calculates how changes in emissions and/or concentrations of different atmospheric constituents since the pre-industrial era have altered the Earth's energy budget at the present day using a metric called effective radiative forcing. The impact of land use change is also assessed. We find that individual contributions do not add linearly, and different Earth system interactions can affect the magnitude of the calculated effective radiative forcing.
Jim M. Haywood, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Nicolas Bellouin, Alan Blyth, Keith N. Bower, Melissa Brooks, Ken Carslaw, Haochi Che, Hugh Coe, Michael I. Cotterell, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Nicholas Davies, Beth Dingley, Paul Field, Paola Formenti, Hamish Gordon, Martin de Graaf, Ross Herbert, Ben Johnson, Anthony C. Jones, Justin M. Langridge, Florent Malavelle, Daniel G. Partridge, Fanny Peers, Jens Redemann, Philip Stier, Kate Szpek, Jonathan W. Taylor, Duncan Watson-Parris, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1049–1084, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, 2021
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Every year, the seasonal cycle of biomass burning from agricultural practices in Africa creates a huge plume of smoke that travels many thousands of kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean. This study provides an overview of a measurement campaign called the cloud–aerosol–radiation interaction and forcing for year 2017 (CLARIFY-2017) and documents the rationale, deployment strategy, observations, and key results from the campaign which utilized the heavily equipped FAAM atmospheric research aircraft.
Gillian D. Thornhill, William J. Collins, Ryan J. Kramer, Dirk Olivié, Ragnhild B. Skeie, Fiona M. O'Connor, Nathan Luke Abraham, Ramiro Checa-Garcia, Susanne E. Bauer, Makoto Deushi, Louisa K. Emmons, Piers M. Forster, Larry W. Horowitz, Ben Johnson, James Keeble, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Martine Michou, Michael J. Mills, Jane P. Mulcahy, Gunnar Myhre, Pierre Nabat, Vaishali Naik, Naga Oshima, Michael Schulz, Christopher J. Smith, Toshihiko Takemura, Simone Tilmes, Tongwen Wu, Guang Zeng, and Jie Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 853–874, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-853-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-853-2021, 2021
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This paper is a study of how different constituents in the atmosphere, such as aerosols and gases like methane and ozone, affect the energy balance in the atmosphere. Different climate models were run using the same inputs to allow an easy comparison of the results and to understand where the models differ. We found the effect of aerosols is to reduce warming in the atmosphere, but this effect varies between models. Reactions between gases are also important in affecting climate.
Benjamin J. Murray, Kenneth S. Carslaw, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 665–679, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-665-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-665-2021, 2021
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The balance between the amounts of ice and supercooled water in clouds over the world's oceans strongly influences how much these clouds can dampen or amplify global warming. Aerosol particles which catalyse ice formation can dramatically reduce the amount of supercooled water in clouds; hence we argue that we need a concerted effort to improve our understanding of these ice-nucleating particles if we are to improve our predictions of climate change.
Haochi Che, Philip Stier, Hamish Gordon, Duncan Watson-Parris, and Lucia Deaconu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17–33, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17-2021, 2021
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The south-eastern Atlantic is semi-permanently covered by some of the largest stratocumulus clouds and is influenced by one-third of the biomass burning emissions from African fires. A UKEMS1 model simulation shows that the absorption effect of biomass burning aerosols is the most significant on clouds and radiation. The dominate cooling and rapid adjustments induced by the radiative effects of biomass burning aerosols result in an overall cooling in the south-eastern Atlantic.
Jane P. Mulcahy, Colin Johnson, Colin G. Jones, Adam C. Povey, Catherine E. Scott, Alistair Sellar, Steven T. Turnock, Matthew T. Woodhouse, Nathan Luke Abraham, Martin B. Andrews, Nicolas Bellouin, Jo Browse, Ken S. Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, Gerd A. Folberth, Matthew Glover, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Catherine Hardacre, Richard Hill, Ben Johnson, Andy Jones, Zak Kipling, Graham Mann, James Mollard, Fiona M. O'Connor, Julien Palmiéri, Carly Reddington, Steven T. Rumbold, Mark Richardson, Nick A. J. Schutgens, Philip Stier, Marc Stringer, Yongming Tang, Jeremy Walton, Stephanie Woodward, and Andrew Yool
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 6383–6423, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6383-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6383-2020, 2020
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Aerosols are an important component of the Earth system. Here, we comprehensively document and evaluate the aerosol schemes as implemented in the physical and Earth system models, HadGEM3-GC3.1 and UKESM1. This study provides a useful characterisation of the aerosol climatology in both models, facilitating the understanding of the numerous aerosol–climate interaction studies that will be conducted for CMIP6 and beyond.
Daniel P. Grosvenor and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15681–15724, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15681-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15681-2020, 2020
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Particles arising from human activity interact with clouds and affect how much of the Sun's energy is reflected away. Lack of understanding about how to represent this in models leads to large uncertainties in climate predictions. We quantify cloud responses to particles in the latest UK Met Office climate model over the North Atlantic Ocean, showing that, in contrast to suggestions elsewhere, increases in cloud coverage and thickness are important over large areas.
Sandip S. Dhomse, Graham W. Mann, Juan Carlos Antuña Marrero, Sarah E. Shallcross, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Lauren Marshall, N. Luke Abraham, and Colin E. Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 13627–13654, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13627-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13627-2020, 2020
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We confirm downward adjustment of SO2 emission to simulate the Pinatubo aerosol cloud with aerosol microphysics models. Similar adjustment is also needed to simulate the El Chichón and Agung volcanic cloud, indicating potential missing removal or vertical redistribution process in models. Important inhomogeneities in the CMIP6 forcing datasets after Agung and El Chichón eruptions are difficult to reconcile. Quasi-biennial oscillation plays an important role in modifying stratospheric warming.
Debbie O'Sullivan, Franco Marenco, Claire L. Ryder, Yaswant Pradhan, Zak Kipling, Ben Johnson, Angela Benedetti, Melissa Brooks, Matthew McGill, John Yorks, and Patrick Selmer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12955–12982, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12955-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12955-2020, 2020
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Mineral dust is an important component of the climate system, and we assess how well it is predicted by two operational models. We flew an aircraft in the dust layers in the eastern Atlantic, and we also make use of satellites. We show that models predict the dust layer too low and that it predicts the particles to be too small. We believe that these discrepancies may be overcome if models can be constrained with operational observations of dust vertical and size-resolved distribution.
Huihui Wu, Jonathan W. Taylor, Kate Szpek, Justin M. Langridge, Paul I. Williams, Michael Flynn, James D. Allan, Steven J. Abel, Joseph Pitt, Michael I. Cotterell, Cathryn Fox, Nicholas W. Davies, Jim Haywood, and Hugh Coe
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12697–12719, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12697-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12697-2020, 2020
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Airborne measurements of highly aged biomass burning aerosols (BBAs) over the remote southeast Atlantic provide unique aerosol parameters for climate models. Our observations demonstrate the persistence of strongly absorbing BBAs across wide regions of the South Atlantic. We also found significant vertical variation in the single-scattering albedo of these BBAs, as a function of relative chemical composition and size. Aerosol properties in the marine BL are suggested to be separated from the FT.
Martin Heinritzi, Lubna Dada, Mario Simon, Dominik Stolzenburg, Andrea C. Wagner, Lukas Fischer, Lauri R. Ahonen, Stavros Amanatidis, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Paulus S. Bauer, Bernhard Baumgartner, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Dexian Chen, Randall Chiu, Antonio Dias, Josef Dommen, Jonathan Duplissy, Henning Finkenzeller, Carla Frege, Claudia Fuchs, Olga Garmash, Hamish Gordon, Manuel Granzin, Imad El Haddad, Xucheng He, Johanna Helm, Victoria Hofbauer, Christopher R. Hoyle, Juha Kangasluoma, Timo Keber, Changhyuk Kim, Andreas Kürten, Houssni Lamkaddam, Tiia M. Laurila, Janne Lampilahti, Chuan Ping Lee, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Markus Leiminger, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna Elina Manninen, Ruby Marten, Serge Mathot, Roy Lee Mauldin, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Tatjana Müller, Wei Nie, Tuomo Nieminen, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Monica Passananti, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Veronika Pospisilova, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti P. Rissanen, Clémence Rose, Siegfried Schobesberger, Wiebke Scholz, Kay Scholze, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Annele Virtanen, Alexander L. Vogel, Rainer Volkamer, Robert Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Lena Weitz, Daniela Wimmer, Mao Xiao, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qiaozhi Zha, Xueqin Zhou, Antonio Amorim, Urs Baltensperger, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, António Tomé, Paul M. Winkler, Douglas R. Worsnop, Neil M. Donahue, Jasper Kirkby, and Joachim Curtius
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11809–11821, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11809-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11809-2020, 2020
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With experiments performed at CLOUD, we show how isoprene interferes in monoterpene oxidation via RO2 termination at atmospherically relevant concentrations. This interference shifts the distribution of highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) away from C20 class dimers towards C15 class dimers, which subsequently reduces both biogenic nucleation and early growth rates. Our results may help to understand the absence of new-particle formation in isoprene-rich environments.
Yohei Shinozuka, Pablo E. Saide, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Sharon P. Burton, Richard Ferrare, Sarah J. Doherty, Hamish Gordon, Karla Longo, Marc Mallet, Yan Feng, Qiaoqiao Wang, Yafang Cheng, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Steven G. Howell, Samuel LeBlanc, Connor Flynn, Michal Segal-Rosenhaimer, Kristina Pistone, James R. Podolske, Eric J. Stith, Joseph Ryan Bennett, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Ravi Govindaraju, Ruby Leung, Yang Zhang, Leonhard Pfister, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Jens Redemann, Robert Wood, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11491–11526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, 2020
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In the southeast Atlantic, well-defined smoke plumes from Africa advect over marine boundary layer cloud decks; both are most extensive around September, when most of the smoke resides in the free troposphere. A framework is put forth for evaluating the performance of a range of global and regional atmospheric composition models against observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) airborne mission in September 2016.
Hamish Gordon, Paul R. Field, Steven J. Abel, Paul Barrett, Keith Bower, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Adrian A. Hill, Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Wilkinson, Huihui Wu, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10997–11024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10997-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10997-2020, 2020
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The Met Office's Unified Model is widely used both for weather forecasting and climate prediction. We present the first version of the model in which both aerosol and cloud particle mass and number concentrations are allowed to evolve separately and independently, which is important for studying how aerosols affect weather and climate. We test the model against aircraft observations near Ascension Island in the Atlantic, focusing on how aerosols can "activate" to become cloud droplets.
James Weber, Scott Archer-Nicholls, Paul Griffiths, Torsten Berndt, Michael Jenkin, Hamish Gordon, Christoph Knote, and Alexander T. Archibald
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10889–10910, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10889-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10889-2020, 2020
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Highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) are important for aerosol growth and new particle formation, particularly in air masses with less sulphuric acid. This new chemical mechanism reproduces measured [HOM] and [HOM precursors] and is concise enough for use in global climate models. The mechanism also reproduces the observed suppression of HOMs by isoprene, suggesting enhanced emissions may not necessarily lead to more aerosols. Greater HOM importance in the pre-industrial era is also shown.
Leighton A. Regayre, Julia Schmale, Jill S. Johnson, Christian Tatzelt, Andrea Baccarini, Silvia Henning, Masaru Yoshioka, Frank Stratmann, Martin Gysel-Beer, Daniel P. Grosvenor, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10063–10072, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10063-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10063-2020, 2020
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The amount of energy reflected back into space because of man-made particles is highly uncertain. Processes related to naturally occurring particles cause most of the uncertainty, but these processes are poorly constrained by present-day measurements. We show that measurements over the Southern Ocean, far from pollution sources, efficiently reduce climate model uncertainties. Our results pave the way to designing experiments and measurement campaigns that reduce this uncertainty even further.
Jill S. Johnson, Leighton A. Regayre, Masaru Yoshioka, Kirsty J. Pringle, Steven T. Turnock, Jo Browse, David M. H. Sexton, John W. Rostron, Nick A. J. Schutgens, Daniel G. Partridge, Dantong Liu, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Aijun Ding, David D. Cohen, Armand Atanacio, Ville Vakkari, Eija Asmi, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9491–9524, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9491-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9491-2020, 2020
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We use over 9000 monthly aggregated grid-box measurements of aerosol to constrain the uncertainty in the HadGEM3-UKCA climate model. Measurements of AOD, PM2.5, particle number concentrations, sulfate and organic mass concentrations are compared to 1 million
variantsof the model using an implausibility metric. Despite many compensating effects in the model, the procedure constrains the probability distributions of many parameters, and direct radiative forcing uncertainty is reduced by 34 %.
Mario Simon, Lubna Dada, Martin Heinritzi, Wiebke Scholz, Dominik Stolzenburg, Lukas Fischer, Andrea C. Wagner, Andreas Kürten, Birte Rörup, Xu-Cheng He, João Almeida, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Paulus S. Bauer, Lisa Beck, Anton Bergen, Federico Bianchi, Steffen Bräkling, Sophia Brilke, Lucia Caudillo, Dexian Chen, Biwu Chu, António Dias, Danielle C. Draper, Jonathan Duplissy, Imad El-Haddad, Henning Finkenzeller, Carla Frege, Loic Gonzalez-Carracedo, Hamish Gordon, Manuel Granzin, Jani Hakala, Victoria Hofbauer, Christopher R. Hoyle, Changhyuk Kim, Weimeng Kong, Houssni Lamkaddam, Chuan P. Lee, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Markus Leiminger, Huajun Mai, Hanna E. Manninen, Guillaume Marie, Ruby Marten, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Leonid Nichman, Wei Nie, Andrea Ojdanic, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Maxim Philippov, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Ananth Ranjithkumar, Matti P. Rissanen, Simon Schallhart, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Jiali Shen, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee J. Tham, António R. Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Alexander L. Vogel, Robert Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Dongyu S. Wang, Yonghong Wang, Stefan K. Weber, Yusheng Wu, Mao Xiao, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qing Ye, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Xueqin Zhou, Urs Baltensperger, Josef Dommen, Richard C. Flagan, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Rainer Volkamer, Paul M. Winkler, Douglas R. Worsnop, Neil M. Donahue, Jasper Kirkby, and Joachim Curtius
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9183–9207, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9183-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9183-2020, 2020
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Highly oxygenated organic compounds (HOMs) have been identified as key vapors involved in atmospheric new-particle formation (NPF). The molecular distribution, HOM yield, and NPF from α-pinene oxidation experiments were measured at the CLOUD chamber over a wide tropospheric-temperature range. This study shows on a molecular scale that despite the sharp reduction in HOM yield at lower temperatures, the reduced volatility counteracts this effect and leads to an overall increase in the NPF rate.
Prodromos Zanis, Dimitris Akritidis, Aristeidis K. Georgoulias, Robert J. Allen, Susanne E. Bauer, Olivier Boucher, Jason Cole, Ben Johnson, Makoto Deushi, Martine Michou, Jane Mulcahy, Pierre Nabat, Dirk Olivié, Naga Oshima, Adriana Sima, Michael Schulz, Toshihiko Takemura, and Konstantinos Tsigaridis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 8381–8404, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8381-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8381-2020, 2020
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In this work, we use Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations from 10 Earth system models (ESMs) and general circulation models (GCMs) to study the fast climate responses on pre-industrial climate, due to present-day aerosols. All models carried out two sets of simulations: a control experiment with all forcings set to the year 1850 and a perturbation experiment with all forcings identical to the control, except for aerosols with precursor emissions set to the year 2014.
Annette K. Miltenberger, Paul R. Field, Adrian H. Hill, and Andrew J. Heymsfield
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 7979–8001, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7979-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7979-2020, 2020
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Orographic wave clouds offer a natural laboratory to investigate cloud microphysical processes and their representation in atmospheric models. They impact the larger-scale flow by a vertical redistribution of moisture and aerosol. We use detailed observations from the ICE-L campaign to evaluate the representation of these clouds in a state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction model and explore the impact of environmental conditions on the vertical redistribution of moisture.
Vidya Varma, Olaf Morgenstern, Paul Field, Kalli Furtado, Jonny Williams, and Patrick Hyder
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 7741–7751, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7741-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7741-2020, 2020
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The present generation of global climate models has an insufficiently reflected short-wave radiation, especially over the Southern Ocean. This leads to an excessive heating of the ocean surface in the model, creating sea surface temperature biases and subsequent problems with atmospheric dynamics. Misrepresentation of clouds could be attributed to this radiation bias; we try to address this issue by slowing the growth rate of ice crystals and improving the supercooled liquid clouds in the model.
Dominik Stolzenburg, Mario Simon, Ananth Ranjithkumar, Andreas Kürten, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Hamish Gordon, Sebastian Ehrhart, Henning Finkenzeller, Lukas Pichelstorfer, Tuomo Nieminen, Xu-Cheng He, Sophia Brilke, Mao Xiao, António Amorim, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Lisa Beck, Steffen Bräkling, Lucía Caudillo Murillo, Dexian Chen, Biwu Chu, Lubna Dada, António Dias, Josef Dommen, Jonathan Duplissy, Imad El Haddad, Lukas Fischer, Loic Gonzalez Carracedo, Martin Heinritzi, Changhyuk Kim, Theodore K. Koenig, Weimeng Kong, Houssni Lamkaddam, Chuan Ping Lee, Markus Leiminger, Zijun Li, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Guillaume Marie, Ruby Marten, Tatjana Müller, Wei Nie, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Maxim Philippov, Matti P. Rissanen, Birte Rörup, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Jiali Shen, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, António Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Andrea C. Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Yonghong Wang, Stefan K. Weber, Daniela Wimmer, Peter J. Wlasits, Yusheng Wu, Qing Ye, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Urs Baltensperger, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Richard C. Flagan, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Jos Lelieveld, Rainer Volkamer, Jasper Kirkby, and Paul M. Winkler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 7359–7372, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7359-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7359-2020, 2020
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Sulfuric acid is a major atmospheric vapour for aerosol formation. If new particles grow fast enough, they can act as cloud droplet seeds or affect air quality. In a controlled laboratory set-up, we demonstrate that van der Waals forces enhance growth from sulfuric acid. We disentangle the effects of ammonia, ions and particle hydration, presenting a complete picture of sulfuric acid growth from molecular clusters onwards. In a climate model, we show its influence on the global aerosol budget.
William T. Morgan, James D. Allan, Stéphane Bauguitte, Eoghan Darbyshire, Michael J. Flynn, James Lee, Dantong Liu, Ben Johnson, Jim Haywood, Karla M. Longo, Paulo E. Artaxo, and Hugh Coe
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 5309–5326, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5309-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5309-2020, 2020
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We flew a large atmospheric research aircraft across a number of different environments in the Amazon basin during the 2012 biomass burning season. Smoke from fires builds up and has a significant impact on weather, climate, health and natural ecosystems. Our goal was to quantify changes in the properties of the smoke emitted by fires as it is transported through the atmosphere. We found that the major control on the properties of the smoke was due to differences in the fires themselves.
Kalli Furtado, Paul Field, Yali Luo, Tianjun Zhou, and Adrian Hill
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 5093–5110, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5093-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5093-2020, 2020
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By combining observations with simulations from a weather forecasting model, new insights are obtained into extreme rainfall processes. We use a model which includes the effects of aerosols on clouds in a fully consistent way. This greater complexity improves realism but raises the computational cost. We address the cost–benefit relationship of this and show that cloud–aerosol interactions have important, measurable benefits for simulating climate extremes.
Daniel T. McCoy, Paul Field, Hamish Gordon, Gregory S. Elsaesser, and Daniel P. Grosvenor
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4085–4103, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4085-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4085-2020, 2020
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Incomplete understanding of how aerosol affects clouds degrades our ability to predict future climate. In particular, it is unclear how aerosol affects the lifetime of clouds. Does it increase or decrease it? This confusion is partially because causality flows from aerosol to clouds and clouds to aerosol, and it is hard to tell what is happening in observations. Here, we use simulations to tell us about how clouds affect aerosol and use this to interpret observations, showing increased lifetime.
Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Paquita Zuidema, Jianhao Zhang, Matt Christensen, Fanny Peers, Jonathan W. Taylor, Ian Crawford, Keith N. Bower, and Michael Flynn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4059–4084, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4059-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4059-2020, 2020
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In situ measurements of a free-tropospheric (FT) biomass burning aerosol plume in contact with the boundary layer inversion overriding a pocket of open cells (POC) and surrounding stratiform cloud are presented. The data highlight the contrasting thermodynamic, aerosol and cloud properties in the two cloud regimes and further demonstrate that the cloud regime plays a key role in regulating the flow of FT aerosols into the boundary layer, which has implications for the aerosol indirect effect.
Gary Lloyd, Thomas Choularton, Keith Bower, Jonathan Crosier, Martin Gallagher, Michael Flynn, James Dorsey, Dantong Liu, Jonathan W. Taylor, Oliver Schlenczek, Jacob Fugal, Stephan Borrmann, Richard Cotton, Paul Field, and Alan Blyth
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 3895–3904, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3895-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3895-2020, 2020
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Measurements of liquid and ice cloud particles were made using an aircraft to penetrate fresh growing convective clouds in the tropical Atlantic. We found small ice particles at surprisingly high temperatures just below freezing. At colder temperatures secondary ice processes rapidly generated high concentrations of ice crystals.
Alexander T. Archibald, Fiona M. O'Connor, Nathan Luke Abraham, Scott Archer-Nicholls, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Mohit Dalvi, Gerd A. Folberth, Fraser Dennison, Sandip S. Dhomse, Paul T. Griffiths, Catherine Hardacre, Alan J. Hewitt, Richard S. Hill, Colin E. Johnson, James Keeble, Marcus O. Köhler, Olaf Morgenstern, Jane P. Mulcahy, Carlos Ordóñez, Richard J. Pope, Steven T. Rumbold, Maria R. Russo, Nicholas H. Savage, Alistair Sellar, Marc Stringer, Steven T. Turnock, Oliver Wild, and Guang Zeng
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 1223–1266, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1223-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1223-2020, 2020
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Here we present a description and evaluation of the UKCA stratosphere–troposphere chemistry scheme (StratTrop vn 1.0) implemented in the UK Earth System Model (UKESM1). UKCA StratTrop represents a substantial step forward compared to previous versions of UKCA. We show here that it is fully suited to the challenges of representing interactions in a coupled Earth system model and identify key areas and components for future development that will make it even better in the future.
Constanze Wellmann, Andrew I. Barrett, Jill S. Johnson, Michael Kunz, Bernhard Vogel, Ken S. Carslaw, and Corinna Hoose
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 2201–2219, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2201-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2201-2020, 2020
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Severe hailstorms may cause damage to buildings and crops. Thus, the forecast of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models should be as reliable as possible.
Using statistical emulation, we identify those model input parameters describing environmental conditions and cloud microphysics which lead to large uncertainties in the prediction of deep convection. We find that the impact of the input parameters on the uncertainty depends on the considered output variable.
Paul A. Barrett, Alan Blyth, Philip R. A. Brown, and Steven J. Abel
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1921–1939, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1921-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1921-2020, 2020
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Here we present new in situ observations from altocumulus clouds made with a research aircraft. By carefully measuring the cloud top height, we are able to study the turbulence and cloud properties in high vertical resolution, something not presented before. The clouds contain both ice particles and liquid drops, even though the temperature is −30 °C. These measurements will hopefully assist future developers of climate models to verify and assess the performance of simulations.
George Spill, Philip Stier, Paul R. Field, and Guy Dagan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 13507–13517, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-13507-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-13507-2019, 2019
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Shallow convective clouds are among the most common and least understood clouds in the atmosphere. Here we present simulations of realistic, shallow cloud fields in a large domain, in contrast to typical idealised simulations, and find that in these simulations the response to aerosol perturbations is different.
Duncan Watson-Parris, Nick Schutgens, Carly Reddington, Kirsty J. Pringle, Dantong Liu, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Ken S. Carslaw, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 11765–11790, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11765-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11765-2019, 2019
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The vertical distribution of aerosol in the atmosphere affects its ability to act as cloud condensation nuclei and changes the amount of sunlight it absorbs or reflects. Common global measurements of aerosol provide no information about this vertical distribution. Using a global collection of in situ aircraft measurements to compare with an aerosol–climate model (ECHAM-HAM), we explore the key processes controlling this distribution and find that wet removal plays a key role.
Franziska Glassmeier, Fabian Hoffmann, Jill S. Johnson, Takanobu Yamaguchi, Ken S. Carslaw, and Graham Feingold
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 10191–10203, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-10191-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-10191-2019, 2019
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The climatic relevance of aerosol–cloud interactions depends on the sensitivity of the radiative effect of clouds to certain cloud properties. We derive the dependence of cloud fraction, cloud albedo, and the relative cloud radiative effect on the number of cloud droplets and on liquid water path from a large set of detailed simulations of stratocumulus clouds.
Fanny Peers, Peter Francis, Cathryn Fox, Steven J. Abel, Kate Szpek, Michael I. Cotterell, Nicholas W. Davies, Justin M. Langridge, Kerry G. Meyer, Steven E. Platnick, and Jim M. Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 9595–9611, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9595-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9595-2019, 2019
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The measurements from the geostationary satellite MSG/SEVIRI are used to retrieve the cloud and above-cloud aerosol properties over the South Atlantic. The technique relies on the spectral contrast and the magnitude of the signal in the visible to shortwave infrared region as well as the atmospheric correction based on forecasted water vapour profiles. The sensitivity analysis and the stability of the retrieval over time show great potential of the high-temporal-resolution observations.
Matthew J. Rowlinson, Alexandru Rap, Stephen R. Arnold, Richard J. Pope, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Joe McNorton, Piers Forster, Hamish Gordon, Kirsty J. Pringle, Wuhu Feng, Brian J. Kerridge, Barry L. Latter, and Richard Siddans
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 8669–8686, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8669-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8669-2019, 2019
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Wildfires and meteorology have a substantial effect on atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as methane and ozone. During the 1997 El Niño event, unusually large fire emissions indirectly increased global methane through carbon monoxide emission, which decreased the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. There were also large regional changes to tropospheric ozone concentrations, but contrasting effects of fire and meteorology resulted in a small change to global radiative forcing.
George S. Fanourgakis, Maria Kanakidou, Athanasios Nenes, Susanne E. Bauer, Tommi Bergman, Ken S. Carslaw, Alf Grini, Douglas S. Hamilton, Jill S. Johnson, Vlassis A. Karydis, Alf Kirkevåg, John K. Kodros, Ulrike Lohmann, Gan Luo, Risto Makkonen, Hitoshi Matsui, David Neubauer, Jeffrey R. Pierce, Julia Schmale, Philip Stier, Kostas Tsigaridis, Twan van Noije, Hailong Wang, Duncan Watson-Parris, Daniel M. Westervelt, Yang Yang, Masaru Yoshioka, Nikos Daskalakis, Stefano Decesari, Martin Gysel-Beer, Nikos Kalivitis, Xiaohong Liu, Natalie M. Mahowald, Stelios Myriokefalitakis, Roland Schrödner, Maria Sfakianaki, Alexandra P. Tsimpidi, Mingxuan Wu, and Fangqun Yu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 8591–8617, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8591-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8591-2019, 2019
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Effects of aerosols on clouds are important for climate studies but are among the largest uncertainties in climate projections. This study evaluates the skill of global models to simulate aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNCs). Model results show reduced spread in CDNC compared to CCN due to the negative correlation between the sensitivities of CDNC to aerosol number concentration (air pollution) and updraft velocity (atmospheric dynamics).
Stephanie Fiedler, Stefan Kinne, Wan Ting Katty Huang, Petri Räisänen, Declan O'Donnell, Nicolas Bellouin, Philip Stier, Joonas Merikanto, Twan van Noije, Risto Makkonen, and Ulrike Lohmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 6821–6841, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6821-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6821-2019, 2019
David Walters, Anthony J. Baran, Ian Boutle, Malcolm Brooks, Paul Earnshaw, John Edwards, Kalli Furtado, Peter Hill, Adrian Lock, James Manners, Cyril Morcrette, Jane Mulcahy, Claudio Sanchez, Chris Smith, Rachel Stratton, Warren Tennant, Lorenzo Tomassini, Kwinten Van Weverberg, Simon Vosper, Martin Willett, Jo Browse, Andrew Bushell, Kenneth Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, Richard Essery, Nicola Gedney, Steven Hardiman, Ben Johnson, Colin Johnson, Andy Jones, Colin Jones, Graham Mann, Sean Milton, Heather Rumbold, Alistair Sellar, Masashi Ujiie, Michael Whitall, Keith Williams, and Mohamed Zerroukat
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 1909–1963, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1909-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1909-2019, 2019
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Global Atmosphere (GA) configurations of the Unified Model (UM) and Global Land (GL) configurations of JULES are developed for use in any global atmospheric modelling application. We describe a recent iteration of these configurations, GA7/GL7, which includes new aerosol and snow schemes and addresses the four critical errors identified in GA6. GA7/GL7 will underpin the UK's contributions to CMIP6, and hence their documentation is important.
Eoghan Darbyshire, William T. Morgan, James D. Allan, Dantong Liu, Michael J. Flynn, James R. Dorsey, Sebastian J. O'Shea, Douglas Lowe, Kate Szpek, Franco Marenco, Ben T. Johnson, Stephane Bauguitte, Jim M. Haywood, Joel F. Brito, Paulo Artaxo, Karla M. Longo, and Hugh Coe
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 5771–5790, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-5771-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-5771-2019, 2019
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A novel analysis of aerosol and gas-phase vertical profiles shows a marked regional pollution contrast: composition is driven by the fire regime and vertical distribution is driven by thermodynamics. These drivers ought to be well represented in simulations to ensure realistic prediction of climate and air quality impacts. The BC : CO ratio in haze and plumes increases with altitude – long-range transport or fire stage coupled to plume dynamics may be responsible. Further enquiry is advocated.
Daniel T. McCoy, Paul R. Field, Gregory S. Elsaesser, Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo, Brian H. Kahn, Mark D. Zelinka, Chihiro Kodama, Thorsten Mauritsen, Benoit Vanniere, Malcolm Roberts, Pier L. Vidale, David Saint-Martin, Aurore Voldoire, Rein Haarsma, Adrian Hill, Ben Shipway, and Jonathan Wilkinson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 1147–1172, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1147-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1147-2019, 2019
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The largest single source of uncertainty in the climate sensitivity predicted by global climate models is how much low-altitude clouds change as the climate warms. Models predict that the amount of liquid within and the brightness of low-altitude clouds increase in the extratropics with warming. We show that increased fluxes of moisture into extratropical storms in the midlatitudes explain the majority of the observed trend and the modeled increase in liquid water within these storms.
Gary Lloyd, Thomas W. Choularton, Keith N. Bower, Martin W. Gallagher, Jonathan Crosier, Sebastian O'Shea, Steven J. Abel, Stuart Fox, Richard Cotton, and Ian A. Boutle
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 17191–17206, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-17191-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-17191-2018, 2018
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The work deals with cold weather outbreaks at high latitudes that often bring severe weather such as heavy snow, lightning and high winds but are poorly forecast by weather models. Here we made measurements of these events and the clouds associated with them using a research aircraft. We found that the properties of these clouds were often very different to what the models predicted, and these results can potentially be used to bring significant improvement to the forecasting of these events.
Meng Si, Victoria E. Irish, Ryan H. Mason, Jesús Vergara-Temprado, Sarah J. Hanna, Luis A. Ladino, Jacqueline D. Yakobi-Hancock, Corinne L. Schiller, Jeremy J. B. Wentzell, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, Ken S. Carslaw, Benjamin J. Murray, and Allan K. Bertram
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15669–15685, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15669-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15669-2018, 2018
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Using the concentrations of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) and total aerosol particles measured at three coastal marine sites, the ice-nucleating ability of aerosol particles on a per number basis and a per surface-area basis were determined as a function of size. The ice-nucleating ability was strongly dependent on size, with larger particles being more efficient. This type of information can help determine the sources of INPs and constrain the future modelling of INPs and mixed-phase clouds.
Jill S. Johnson, Leighton A. Regayre, Masaru Yoshioka, Kirsty J. Pringle, Lindsay A. Lee, David M. H. Sexton, John W. Rostron, Ben B. B. Booth, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 13031–13053, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-13031-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-13031-2018, 2018
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We estimate the uncertainty in an aerosol–climate model that has been tuned to match several common types of observations. We used a large set of model simulations and built emulators so that we could generate 4 million “variants” of our climate model. Even after using nine aerosol and cloud observations to constrain the model, the uncertainty remains large. We conclude that estimates of aerosol forcing from multi-model studies are likely to be more uncertain than currently estimated.
Nathan Luke Abraham, Alexander T. Archibald, Paul Cresswell, Sam Cusworth, Mohit Dalvi, David Matthews, Steven Wardle, and Stuart Whitehouse
Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 3647–3657, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-3647-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-3647-2018, 2018
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Using a virtual machine environment, a low-resolution configuration of the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosols (UKCA) composition-climate model has been developed. This configuration, while not suitable for long simulations, is an excellent test-bed for new model developments and can be used to train new users in how to use UKCA. This work was motivated by the desire to improve the usability of UKCA, and to encourage more users to become involved with the code development process.
Robin G. Stevens, Katharina Loewe, Christopher Dearden, Antonios Dimitrelos, Anna Possner, Gesa K. Eirund, Tomi Raatikainen, Adrian A. Hill, Benjamin J. Shipway, Jonathan Wilkinson, Sami Romakkaniemi, Juha Tonttila, Ari Laaksonen, Hannele Korhonen, Paul Connolly, Ulrike Lohmann, Corinna Hoose, Annica M. L. Ekman, Ken S. Carslaw, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 11041–11071, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11041-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11041-2018, 2018
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We perform a model intercomparison of summertime high Arctic clouds. Observed concentrations of aerosol particles necessary for cloud formation fell to extremely low values, coincident with a transition from cloudy to nearly cloud-free conditions. Previous analyses have suggested that at these low concentrations, the radiative properties of the clouds are determined primarily by these particle concentrations. The model results strongly support this hypothesis.
Annette K. Miltenberger, Paul R. Field, Adrian A. Hill, Ben J. Shipway, and Jonathan M. Wilkinson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 10593–10613, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-10593-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-10593-2018, 2018
Daniel P. Grosvenor, Odran Sourdeval, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4273–4289, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4273-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4273-2018, 2018
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We provide a parameterized correction to the retrieval of cloud effective radius from satellite instruments to account for the assumption that the retrieved value is representative of that at cloud top, whereas in reality it is representative of that lower down. The error leads to errors (which we quantify) in the retrieved cloud droplet concentrations of up to 38 % for stratocumulus regions and also to liquid water path errors, both of which can be corrected using our parameterizations.
Leighton A. Regayre, Jill S. Johnson, Masaru Yoshioka, Kirsty J. Pringle, David M. H. Sexton, Ben B. B. Booth, Lindsay A. Lee, Nicolas Bellouin, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 9975–10006, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9975-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9975-2018, 2018
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We sample uncertainty in one climate model by perturbing aerosol and physical atmosphere parameters. Our uncertainty is comparable to multi-model studies. Atmospheric parameters cause most of the top-of-atmosphere flux uncertainty; uncertainty in aerosol forcing is mostly caused by aerosols: both are important. The strongest aerosol forcings are inconsistent with top-of-atmosphere flux observations. Better constraint requires observations that share causes of uncertainty with aerosol forcing.
Daniel T. McCoy, Paul R. Field, Anja Schmidt, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Frida A.-M. Bender, Ben J. Shipway, Adrian A. Hill, Jonathan M. Wilkinson, and Gregory S. Elsaesser
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 5821–5846, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5821-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5821-2018, 2018
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Here we use a combination of global convection-permitting models, satellite observations and the Holuhraun volcanic eruption to demonstrate that aerosol enhances the cloud liquid content and brightness of midlatitude cyclones. This is important because the strength of anthropogenic radiative forcing is uncertain, leading to uncertainty in the climate sensitivity consistent with observed temperature record.
Amy K. Hodgson, William T. Morgan, Sebastian O'Shea, Stéphane Bauguitte, James D. Allan, Eoghan Darbyshire, Michael J. Flynn, Dantong Liu, James Lee, Ben Johnson, Jim M. Haywood, Karla M. Longo, Paulo E. Artaxo, and Hugh Coe
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 5619–5638, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5619-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5619-2018, 2018
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We flew a large atmospheric research aircraft across a number of different biomass burning environments in the Amazon Basin in September and October 2012. In this paper, we focus on smoke sampled very close to fresh fires (only 600–900 m above the fires and smoke that was 4–6 min old) to examine the chemical components that make up the smoke and their abundance. We found substantial differences in the emitted smoke that are due to the fuel type and combustion processes driving the fires.
Gillian D. Thornhill, Claire L. Ryder, Eleanor J. Highwood, Len C. Shaffrey, and Ben T. Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 5321–5342, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5321-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5321-2018, 2018
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We investigated the impact on the regional climate of different amounts of smoke emission (aerosol) from the burning of vegetation in South America using a climate model. We looked at differences between high and low smoke emissions and found impacts from the higher smoke emissions on the amount of cloud cover, solar radiation reaching the surface, wind patterns and rainfall. This means the local climate may be affected if there is more deforestation and more smoke from burning of vegetation.
Annette K. Miltenberger, Paul R. Field, Adrian A. Hill, Phil Rosenberg, Ben J. Shipway, Jonathan M. Wilkinson, Robert Scovell, and Alan M. Blyth
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 3119–3145, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-3119-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-3119-2018, 2018
Lauren Marshall, Anja Schmidt, Matthew Toohey, Ken S. Carslaw, Graham W. Mann, Michael Sigl, Myriam Khodri, Claudia Timmreck, Davide Zanchettin, William T. Ball, Slimane Bekki, James S. A. Brooke, Sandip Dhomse, Colin Johnson, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Allegra N. LeGrande, Michael J. Mills, Ulrike Niemeier, James O. Pope, Virginie Poulain, Alan Robock, Eugene Rozanov, Andrea Stenke, Timofei Sukhodolov, Simone Tilmes, Kostas Tsigaridis, and Fiona Tummon
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 2307–2328, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2307-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2307-2018, 2018
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We use four global aerosol models to compare the simulated sulfate deposition from the 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption to ice core records. Inter-model volcanic sulfate deposition differs considerably. Volcanic sulfate deposited on polar ice sheets is used to estimate the atmospheric sulfate burden and subsequently radiative forcing of historic eruptions. Our results suggest that deriving such relationships from model simulations may be associated with greater uncertainties than previously thought.
Daniel T. McCoy, Frida A.-M. Bender, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Johannes K. Mohrmann, Dennis L. Hartmann, Robert Wood, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 2035–2047, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2035-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2035-2018, 2018
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The interaction between clouds and aerosols represents the largest source of uncertainty in the anthropogenic radiative forcing. Cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) is the state variable that moderates the interaction between aerosol and clouds. Here we show that CDNC decreases off the coasts of East Asia and North America due to controls on emissions. We support this analysis through an examination of volcanism in Hawaii and Vanuatu.
Robert Wagner, Chao Yan, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Jonathan Duplissy, Tuomo Nieminen, Juha Kangasluoma, Lauri R. Ahonen, Lubna Dada, Jenni Kontkanen, Hanna E. Manninen, Antonio Dias, Antonio Amorim, Paulus S. Bauer, Anton Bergen, Anne-Kathrin Bernhammer, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Stephany Buenrostro Mazon, Xuemeng Chen, Danielle C. Draper, Lukas Fischer, Carla Frege, Claudia Fuchs, Olga Garmash, Hamish Gordon, Jani Hakala, Liine Heikkinen, Martin Heinritzi, Victoria Hofbauer, Christopher R. Hoyle, Jasper Kirkby, Andreas Kürten, Alexander N. Kvashnin, Tiia Laurila, Michael J. Lawler, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Roy L. Mauldin III, Ugo Molteni, Leonid Nichman, Wei Nie, Andrea Ojdanic, Antti Onnela, Felix Piel, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti P. Rissanen, Nina Sarnela, Simon Schallhart, Kamalika Sengupta, Mario Simon, Dominik Stolzenburg, Yuri Stozhkov, Jasmin Tröstl, Yrjö Viisanen, Alexander L. Vogel, Andrea C. Wagner, Mao Xiao, Penglin Ye, Urs Baltensperger, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Richard C. Flagan, Martin Gallagher, Armin Hansel, James N. Smith, António Tomé, Paul M. Winkler, Douglas Worsnop, Mikael Ehn, Mikko Sipilä, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Tuukka Petäjä, and Markku Kulmala
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 15181–15197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-15181-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-15181-2017, 2017
Lucy S. Neal, Mohit Dalvi, Gerd Folberth, Rachel N. McInnes, Paul Agnew, Fiona M. O'Connor, Nicholas H. Savage, and Marie Tilbee
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 3941–3962, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3941-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3941-2017, 2017
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This paper concerns aspects of downscaling global atmospheric composition and chemistry model predictions on the continental and UK national scale. A two-step nested model configuration was developed and used to simulate UK air quality for a 5-year period under present-day conditions. The results show some benefits associated with higher-resolution modelling for primary emitted pollutants, but also highlight the importance of consistency between the nested models.
Daniel P. Grosvenor, Paul R. Field, Adrian A. Hill, and Benjamin J. Shipway
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 5155–5183, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5155-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5155-2017, 2017
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We used a weather model to simulate low-level layer clouds that lie off the coast of Chile and tested how they would be affected by airborne particulate matter (aerosols) according to the model. We found that as aerosols were increased, the clouds reflected more and more of the sun’s incoming energy due to the combined effects of the cloud droplets becoming smaller, the thickening of clouds, and increased areal coverage. However, the latter two effects were only important at low aerosol levels.
Jesús Vergara-Temprado, Benjamin J. Murray, Theodore W. Wilson, Daniel O'Sullivan, Jo Browse, Kirsty J. Pringle, Karin Ardon-Dryer, Allan K. Bertram, Susannah M. Burrows, Darius Ceburnis, Paul J. DeMott, Ryan H. Mason, Colin D. O'Dowd, Matteo Rinaldi, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 3637–3658, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3637-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3637-2017, 2017
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We quantify the importance in the atmosphere of different aerosol components to contribute to global ice-nucleating particles concentrations (INPs). The aim is to improve the way atmospheric cloud-ice processes are represented in climate models so they will be able to make better predictions in the future. We found that a kind of dust (K-feldspar), together with marine organic aerosols, can help to improve the representation of INPs and explain most of their observations.
Céline Planche, Graham W. Mann, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, John H. Marsham, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 3371–3384, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3371-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3371-2017, 2017
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A convection-permitting limited area model with prognostic aerosol microphysics is applied to investigate how concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the marine boundary layer are affected by high-resolution dynamical and thermodynamic fields at sub-climate model scale. We gain new insight into the way primary sea-salt and secondary sulfate particles contribute to the overall CCN variance, and find a marked difference in the variability of super- and sub-micron CCN.
Ben T. Johnson, James M. Haywood, Justin M. Langridge, Eoghan Darbyshire, William T. Morgan, Kate Szpek, Jennifer K. Brooke, Franco Marenco, Hugh Coe, Paulo Artaxo, Karla M. Longo, Jane P. Mulcahy, Graham W. Mann, Mohit Dalvi, and Nicolas Bellouin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 14657–14685, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-14657-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-14657-2016, 2016
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Biomass burning is a large source of carbonaceous aerosols, which scatter and absorb solar radiation, and modify cloud properties. We evaluate the simulation of biomass burning aerosol processes and properties in the HadGEM3 climate model using observations, including those from the South American Biomass Burning Analysis. We find that modelled aerosol optical depths are underestimated unless aerosol emissions (Global Fire Emission Database v3) are increased by a factor of 1.6–2.0.
François Benduhn, Graham W. Mann, Kirsty J. Pringle, David O. Topping, Gordon McFiggans, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3875–3906, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3875-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3875-2016, 2016
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We present a new mathematical formalism that serves to represent exchanges of inorganic matter between the atmosphere gas phase and the aerosol aqueous phase. In a global modelling framework, taking into account these processes may help represent many important features more accurately, such as the formation of cloud droplets or the radiative properties of the atmosphere. The formalism strives to keep an appropriate balance between accuracy and computation efficiency requirements.
Zarashpe Z. Kapadia, Dominick V. Spracklen, Steve R. Arnold, Duncan J. Borman, Graham W. Mann, Kirsty J. Pringle, Sarah A. Monks, Carly L. Reddington, François Benduhn, Alexandru Rap, Catherine E. Scott, Edward W. Butt, and Masaru Yoshioka
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 10521–10541, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10521-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10521-2016, 2016
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Using a coupled tropospheric chemistry-aerosol microphysics model this research paper investigates the effect of variations in aviation fuel sulfur content (FSC) on surface PM2.5 concentrations, increases in aviation-induced premature mortalities, low-level cloud condensation nuclei and radiative effect.
When investigating the climatic impact of variations in FSC the ozone direct radiative effect, aerosol direct radiative effect and aerosol cloud albedo effect are quantified.
When investigating the climatic impact of variations in FSC the ozone direct radiative effect, aerosol direct radiative effect and aerosol cloud albedo effect are quantified.
Karoliina Ignatius, Thomas B. Kristensen, Emma Järvinen, Leonid Nichman, Claudia Fuchs, Hamish Gordon, Paul Herenz, Christopher R. Hoyle, Jonathan Duplissy, Sarvesh Garimella, Antonio Dias, Carla Frege, Niko Höppel, Jasmin Tröstl, Robert Wagner, Chao Yan, Antonio Amorim, Urs Baltensperger, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Martin W. Gallagher, Jasper Kirkby, Markku Kulmala, Ottmar Möhler, Harald Saathoff, Martin Schnaiter, Antonio Tomé, Annele Virtanen, Douglas Worsnop, and Frank Stratmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 6495–6509, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6495-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6495-2016, 2016
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Viscous solid or semi-solid secondary organic aerosol (SOA) may influence cloud properties through ice nucleation in the atmosphere. Here, we observed heterogeneous ice nucleation of viscous α-pinene SOA at temperatures between −39 °C and −37.2 °C with ice saturation ratios significantly below the homogeneous freezing limit. Global modelling suggests that viscous biogenic SOA are present in regions where cirrus formation takes place and could contribute to the global ice nuclei budget.
Robert J. Farrington, Paul J. Connolly, Gary Lloyd, Keith N. Bower, Michael J. Flynn, Martin W. Gallagher, Paul R. Field, Chris Dearden, and Thomas W. Choularton
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 4945–4966, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4945-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4945-2016, 2016
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This paper assesses the reasons for high ice number concentrations observed in orographic clouds by comparing observations with model simulations over Jungfraujoch, Switzerland. The results suggest that ice nuclei do not significantly contribute to the high concentrations and that a surface source of ice crystals is responsible for the witnessed ice number concentrations.
Emma Järvinen, Karoliina Ignatius, Leonid Nichman, Thomas B. Kristensen, Claudia Fuchs, Christopher R. Hoyle, Niko Höppel, Joel C. Corbin, Jill Craven, Jonathan Duplissy, Sebastian Ehrhart, Imad El Haddad, Carla Frege, Hamish Gordon, Tuija Jokinen, Peter Kallinger, Jasper Kirkby, Alexei Kiselev, Karl-Heinz Naumann, Tuukka Petäjä, Tamara Pinterich, Andre S. H. Prevot, Harald Saathoff, Thea Schiebel, Kamalika Sengupta, Mario Simon, Jay G. Slowik, Jasmin Tröstl, Annele Virtanen, Paul Vochezer, Steffen Vogt, Andrea C. Wagner, Robert Wagner, Christina Williamson, Paul M. Winkler, Chao Yan, Urs Baltensperger, Neil M. Donahue, Rick C. Flagan, Martin Gallagher, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Frank Stratmann, Douglas R. Worsnop, Ottmar Möhler, Thomas Leisner, and Martin Schnaiter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 4423–4438, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4423-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4423-2016, 2016
Leonid Nichman, Claudia Fuchs, Emma Järvinen, Karoliina Ignatius, Niko Florian Höppel, Antonio Dias, Martin Heinritzi, Mario Simon, Jasmin Tröstl, Andrea Christine Wagner, Robert Wagner, Christina Williamson, Chao Yan, Paul James Connolly, James Robert Dorsey, Jonathan Duplissy, Sebastian Ehrhart, Carla Frege, Hamish Gordon, Christopher Robert Hoyle, Thomas Bjerring Kristensen, Gerhard Steiner, Neil McPherson Donahue, Richard Flagan, Martin William Gallagher, Jasper Kirkby, Ottmar Möhler, Harald Saathoff, Martin Schnaiter, Frank Stratmann, and António Tomé
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3651–3664, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3651-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3651-2016, 2016
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Processes in the atmosphere are often governed by the physical and chemical properties of small cloud particles. Ice, water, and mixed clouds, as well as viscous aerosols, were formed under controlled conditions at the CLOUD-CERN facility. The experimental results show a link between cloud particle properties and their unique optical fingerprints. The classification map presented here allows easier discrimination between various particles such as viscous organic aerosol, salt, ice, and liquid.
Franco Marenco, Ben Johnson, Justin M. Langridge, Jane Mulcahy, Angela Benedetti, Samuel Remy, Luke Jones, Kate Szpek, Jim Haywood, Karla Longo, and Paulo Artaxo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 2155–2174, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-2155-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-2155-2016, 2016
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A widespread and persistent smoke layer was observed in the Amazon
region during the biomass burning season, spanning a distance of 2200 km
and a period of 14 days. The larger smoke content was typically found
in elevated layers, from 1–1.5 km to 4–6 km.
Measurements have been compared to model predictions, and the latter
were able to reproduce the general features of the smoke layer, but
with some differences which are analysed and described in the paper.
C. R. Hoyle, C. Fuchs, E. Järvinen, H. Saathoff, A. Dias, I. El Haddad, M. Gysel, S. C. Coburn, J. Tröstl, A.-K. Bernhammer, F. Bianchi, M. Breitenlechner, J. C. Corbin, J. Craven, N. M. Donahue, J. Duplissy, S. Ehrhart, C. Frege, H. Gordon, N. Höppel, M. Heinritzi, T. B. Kristensen, U. Molteni, L. Nichman, T. Pinterich, A. S. H. Prévôt, M. Simon, J. G. Slowik, G. Steiner, A. Tomé, A. L. Vogel, R. Volkamer, A. C. Wagner, R. Wagner, A. S. Wexler, C. Williamson, P. M. Winkler, C. Yan, A. Amorim, J. Dommen, J. Curtius, M. W. Gallagher, R. C. Flagan, A. Hansel, J. Kirkby, M. Kulmala, O. Möhler, F. Stratmann, D. R. Worsnop, and U. Baltensperger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 1693–1712, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-1693-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-1693-2016, 2016
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A significant portion of sulphate, an important constituent of atmospheric aerosols, is formed via the aqueous phase oxidation of sulphur dioxide by ozone. The rate of this reaction has previously only been measured over a relatively small temperature range. Here, we use the state of the art CLOUD chamber at CERN to perform the first measurements of this reaction rate in super-cooled droplets, confirming that the existing extrapolation of the reaction rate to sub-zero temperatures is accurate.
C. E. Scott, D. V. Spracklen, J. R. Pierce, I. Riipinen, S. D. D'Andrea, A. Rap, K. S. Carslaw, P. M. Forster, P. Artaxo, M. Kulmala, L. V. Rizzo, E. Swietlicki, G. W. Mann, and K. J. Pringle
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 12989–13001, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12989-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12989-2015, 2015
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To understand the radiative effects of biogenic secondary organic aerosol (SOA) it is necessary to consider the manner in which it is distributed across the existing aerosol size distribution. We explore the importance of the approach taken by global-scale models to do this, when calculating the direct radiative effect (DRE) & first aerosol indirect effect (AIE) due to biogenic SOA. This choice has little effect on the DRE, but a substantial impact on the magnitude and even sign of the first AIE
S. R. Kolusu, J. H. Marsham, J. Mulcahy, B. Johnson, C. Dunning, M. Bush, and D. V. Spracklen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 12251–12266, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12251-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12251-2015, 2015
S. T. Turnock, D. V. Spracklen, K. S. Carslaw, G. W. Mann, M. T. Woodhouse, P. M. Forster, J. Haywood, C. E. Johnson, M. Dalvi, N. Bellouin, and A. Sanchez-Lorenzo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 9477–9500, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-9477-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-9477-2015, 2015
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We evaluate HadGEM3-UKCA over Europe for the period 1960-2009 against observations of aerosol mass and number, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and surface solar radiation (SSR). The model underestimates aerosol mass and number but is less biased if compared to AOD and SSR. Observed trends in aerosols are well simulated by the model and necessary for reproducing the observed increase in SSR since 1990. European all-sky top of atmosphere aerosol radiative forcing increased by > 3 Wm-2 from 1970 to 2009.
S. Fuzzi, U. Baltensperger, K. Carslaw, S. Decesari, H. Denier van der Gon, M. C. Facchini, D. Fowler, I. Koren, B. Langford, U. Lohmann, E. Nemitz, S. Pandis, I. Riipinen, Y. Rudich, M. Schaap, J. G. Slowik, D. V. Spracklen, E. Vignati, M. Wild, M. Williams, and S. Gilardoni
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 8217–8299, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-8217-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-8217-2015, 2015
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Particulate matter (PM) constitutes one of the most challenging problems both for air quality and climate change policies. This paper reviews the most recent scientific results on the issue and the policy needs that have driven much of the increase in monitoring and mechanistic research over the last 2 decades. The synthesis reveals many new processes and developments in the science underpinning climate-PM interactions and the effects of PM on human health and the environment.
E. Kienast-Sjögren, A. K. Miltenberger, B. P. Luo, and T. Peter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 7429–7447, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7429-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7429-2015, 2015
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Sensitivities of Lagrangian cirrus modelling on input data uncertainties have been examined. We found a strong dependence on the temporal resolution of the trajectories and underlying numerical weather prediction (NWP) data as well as on the specific moisture content. Furthermore, we found a large day-to-day variability in the vertical wind spectrum, demonstrating the necessity to apply NWP models with high spatial and temporal resolution for Lagrangian cirrus modelling.
A. Franchin, S. Ehrhart, J. Leppä, T. Nieminen, S. Gagné, S. Schobesberger, D. Wimmer, J. Duplissy, F. Riccobono, E. M. Dunne, L. Rondo, A. Downard, F. Bianchi, A. Kupc, G. Tsagkogeorgas, K. Lehtipalo, H. E. Manninen, J. Almeida, A. Amorim, P. E. Wagner, A. Hansel, J. Kirkby, A. Kürten, N. M. Donahue, V. Makhmutov, S. Mathot, A. Metzger, T. Petäjä, R. Schnitzhofer, M. Sipilä, Y. Stozhkov, A. Tomé, V.-M. Kerminen, K. Carslaw, J. Curtius, U. Baltensperger, and M. Kulmala
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 7203–7216, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7203-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7203-2015, 2015
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The ion-ion recombination coefficient was measured at different temperatures, relative humidities and concentrations of ozone and sulfur dioxide. The experiments were carried out using the CLOUD chamber at CERN.
We observed a strong dependency on temperature and on relative humidity, which has not been reported previously. No dependency of the ion-ion recombination coefficient on ozone concentration was observed and a weak variation with sulfur dioxide concentration was also observed.
A. K. Vance, S. J. Abel, R. J. Cotton, and A. M. Woolley
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1617–1625, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1617-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1617-2015, 2015
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Comparisons on the FAAM BAe 146-301 aircraft show good agreement between chilled mirror hygrometers and a WVSS-II fed from a modified Rosemount inlet (wvssR) in coud-free conditions, but a WVSS-II fed from the standard flush inlet (wvssF) over-reads, except at higher humidities. Case studies in cloudy conditions show that wvssF is immune to liquid water and ice, whilst wvssR is susceptible to both. Both WVSS-II inlets respond much more rapidly than the chilled mirror devices, especially wvssF.
A. Korolev and P. R. Field
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 761–777, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-761-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-761-2015, 2015
J. Brito, L. V. Rizzo, W. T. Morgan, H. Coe, B. Johnson, J. Haywood, K. Longo, S. Freitas, M. O. Andreae, and P. Artaxo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 12069–12083, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-12069-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-12069-2014, 2014
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This paper details the physical--chemical characteristics of aerosols in a region strongly impacted by biomass burning in the western part of the Brazilian Amazon region. For such, a large suite of state-of-the-art instruments for realtime analysis was deployed at a ground site. Among the key findings, we observe the strong prevalence of organic aerosols associated to fire emissions, with important climate effects, and indications of its very fast processing in the atmosphere.
S. S. Dhomse, K. M. Emmerson, G. W. Mann, N. Bellouin, K. S. Carslaw, M. P. Chipperfield, R. Hommel, N. L. Abraham, P. Telford, P. Braesicke, M. Dalvi, C. E. Johnson, F. O'Connor, O. Morgenstern, J. A. Pyle, T. Deshler, J. M. Zawodny, and L. W. Thomason
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 11221–11246, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11221-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11221-2014, 2014
K. Tsigaridis, N. Daskalakis, M. Kanakidou, P. J. Adams, P. Artaxo, R. Bahadur, Y. Balkanski, S. E. Bauer, N. Bellouin, A. Benedetti, T. Bergman, T. K. Berntsen, J. P. Beukes, H. Bian, K. S. Carslaw, M. Chin, G. Curci, T. Diehl, R. C. Easter, S. J. Ghan, S. L. Gong, A. Hodzic, C. R. Hoyle, T. Iversen, S. Jathar, J. L. Jimenez, J. W. Kaiser, A. Kirkevåg, D. Koch, H. Kokkola, Y. H Lee, G. Lin, X. Liu, G. Luo, X. Ma, G. W. Mann, N. Mihalopoulos, J.-J. Morcrette, J.-F. Müller, G. Myhre, S. Myriokefalitakis, N. L. Ng, D. O'Donnell, J. E. Penner, L. Pozzoli, K. J. Pringle, L. M. Russell, M. Schulz, J. Sciare, Ø. Seland, D. T. Shindell, S. Sillman, R. B. Skeie, D. Spracklen, T. Stavrakou, S. D. Steenrod, T. Takemura, P. Tiitta, S. Tilmes, H. Tost, T. van Noije, P. G. van Zyl, K. von Salzen, F. Yu, Z. Wang, Z. Wang, R. A. Zaveri, H. Zhang, K. Zhang, Q. Zhang, and X. Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 10845–10895, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-10845-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-10845-2014, 2014
S. J. Abel, R. J. Cotton, P. A. Barrett, and A. K. Vance
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 3007–3022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3007-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3007-2014, 2014
D. P. Grosvenor, J. C. King, T. W. Choularton, and T. Lachlan-Cope
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9481–9509, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9481-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9481-2014, 2014
J. Browse, K. S. Carslaw, G. W. Mann, C. E. Birch, S. R. Arnold, and C. Leck
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 7543–7557, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7543-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7543-2014, 2014
D. P. Grosvenor and R. Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 7291–7321, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7291-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7291-2014, 2014
G. W. Mann, K. S. Carslaw, C. L. Reddington, K. J. Pringle, M. Schulz, A. Asmi, D. V. Spracklen, D. A. Ridley, M. T. Woodhouse, L. A. Lee, K. Zhang, S. J. Ghan, R. C. Easter, X. Liu, P. Stier, Y. H. Lee, P. J. Adams, H. Tost, J. Lelieveld, S. E. Bauer, K. Tsigaridis, T. P. C. van Noije, A. Strunk, E. Vignati, N. Bellouin, M. Dalvi, C. E. Johnson, T. Bergman, H. Kokkola, K. von Salzen, F. Yu, G. Luo, A. Petzold, J. Heintzenberg, A. Clarke, J. A. Ogren, J. Gras, U. Baltensperger, U. Kaminski, S. G. Jennings, C. D. O'Dowd, R. M. Harrison, D. C. S. Beddows, M. Kulmala, Y. Viisanen, V. Ulevicius, N. Mihalopoulos, V. Zdimal, M. Fiebig, H.-C. Hansson, E. Swietlicki, and J. S. Henzing
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 4679–4713, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-4679-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-4679-2014, 2014
C. Jiao, M. G. Flanner, Y. Balkanski, S. E. Bauer, N. Bellouin, T. K. Berntsen, H. Bian, K. S. Carslaw, M. Chin, N. De Luca, T. Diehl, S. J. Ghan, T. Iversen, A. Kirkevåg, D. Koch, X. Liu, G. W. Mann, J. E. Penner, G. Pitari, M. Schulz, Ø. Seland, R. B. Skeie, S. D. Steenrod, P. Stier, T. Takemura, K. Tsigaridis, T. van Noije, Y. Yun, and K. Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 2399–2417, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-2399-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-2399-2014, 2014
C. E. Scott, A. Rap, D. V. Spracklen, P. M. Forster, K. S. Carslaw, G. W. Mann, K. J. Pringle, N. Kivekäs, M. Kulmala, H. Lihavainen, and P. Tunved
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 447–470, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-447-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-447-2014, 2014
M. Yoshida, J. M. Haywood, T. Yokohata, H. Murakami, and T. Nakajima
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 10827–10845, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-10827-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-10827-2013, 2013
L. A. Lee, K. J. Pringle, C. L. Reddington, G. W. Mann, P. Stier, D. V. Spracklen, J. R. Pierce, and K. S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 8879–8914, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-8879-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-8879-2013, 2013
C. L. Reddington, G. McMeeking, G. W. Mann, H. Coe, M. G. Frontoso, D. Liu, M. Flynn, D. V. Spracklen, and K. S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 4917–4939, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-4917-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-4917-2013, 2013
N. Bellouin, G. W. Mann, M. T. Woodhouse, C. Johnson, K. S. Carslaw, and M. Dalvi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 3027–3044, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3027-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3027-2013, 2013
M. T. Woodhouse, G. W. Mann, K. S. Carslaw, and O. Boucher
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 2723–2733, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2723-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2723-2013, 2013
H. F. Dacre, A. L. M. Grant, and B. T. Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 1277–1291, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1277-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1277-2013, 2013
E. M. Dunne, L. A. Lee, C. L. Reddington, and K. S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 11573–11587, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-11573-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-11573-2012, 2012
Related subject area
Subject: Clouds and Precipitation | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Model analysis of biases in the satellite-diagnosed aerosol effect on the cloud liquid water path
Evaluation of biases in mid-to-high-latitude surface snowfall and cloud phase in ERA5 and CMIP6 using satellite observations
Dynamical imprints on precipitation cluster statistics across a hierarchy of high-resolution simulations
Role of a key microphysical factor in mixed-phase stratocumulus clouds and their interactions with aerosols
Correction of ERA5 temperature and relative humidity biases by bivariate quantile mapping for contrail formation analysis
Can pollen affect precipitation?
Potential impacts of marine fuel regulations on an Arctic stratocumulus case and its radiative response
The impact of the mesh size and microphysics scheme on the representation of mid-level clouds in the ICON model in hilly and complex terrain
The role of ascent timescales for warm conveyor belt (WCB) moisture transport into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS)
Estimating the concentration of silver iodide needed to detect unambiguous signatures of glaciogenic cloud seeding
Ice-nucleating particle concentration impacts cloud properties over Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica, in COSMO-CLM2
Numerical simulation of aerosol concentration effects on cloud droplet size spectrum evolutions of warm stratiform clouds in Jiangxi, China
The impact of aerosol on cloud water: a heuristic perspective
The presence of clouds lowers climate sensitivity in the MPI-ESM1.2 climate model
Diurnal variation in an amplified canopy urban heat island during heat wave periods in the megacity of Beijing: roles of mountain–valley breeze and urban morphology
Diurnal evolution of non-precipitating marine stratocumuli in a large-eddy simulation ensemble
High ice water content in tropical mesoscale convective systems (a conceptual model)
Evolution of cloud droplet temperature and lifetime in spatiotemporally varying subsaturated environments with implications for ice nucleation at cloud edges
Effect of secondary ice production processes on the simulation of ice pellets using the Predicted Particle Properties microphysics scheme
Simulated particle evolution within a winter storm: contributions of riming to radar moments and precipitation fallout
A thermal-driven graupel generation process to explain dry-season convective vigor over the Amazon
Modeling homogeneous ice nucleation from drop-freezing experiments: impact of droplet volume dispersion and cooling rates
Cloud water adjustments to aerosol perturbations are buffered by solar heating in non-precipitating marine stratocumuli
Glaciation of mixed-phase clouds: insights from bulk model and bin-microphysics large-eddy simulation informed by laboratory experiment
Microphysical processes involving the vapour phase dominate in simulated low-level Arctic clouds
Understanding aerosol–cloud interactions using a single-column model for a cold-air outbreak case during the ACTIVATE campaign
Investigating ice formation pathways using a novel two-moment multi-class cloud microphysics scheme
On the sensitivity of aerosol–cloud interactions to changes in sea surface temperature in radiative–convective equilibrium
Exploring aerosol–cloud interactions in liquid-phase clouds over eastern China and its adjacent ocean using the WRF-Chem–SBM model
Impact on the stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition of the interaction of cloud microphysics and macrophysics with large-scale circulation
How the representation of microphysical processes affects tropical condensate in a global storm-resolving model
Impact of secondary ice production on thunderstorm electrification under different aerosol conditions
Finite domains cause bias in measured and modeled distributions of cloud sizes
A systematic evaluation of high-cloud controlling factors
Tracking precipitation features and associated large-scale environments over southeastern Texas
Revisiting the evolution of downhill thunderstorms over Beijing: a new perspective from a radar wind profiler mesonet
How well can persistent contrails be predicted? An update
Present-day correlations are insufficient to predict cloud albedo change by anthropogenic aerosols in E3SM v2
Simulations of primary and secondary ice production during an Arctic mixed-phase cloud case from the Ny-Ålesund Aerosol Cloud Experiment (NASCENT) campaign
Microphysical characteristics of precipitation within convective overshooting over East China observed by GPM DPR and ERA5
Effects of radiative cooling on advection fog over the northwest Pacific Ocean: observations and large-eddy simulations
Evaluating the Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process in ICON in large-eddy mode with in situ observations from the CLOUDLAB project
Aerosol-induced closure of marine cloud cells: enhanced effects in the presence of precipitation
Impact of ice multiplication on the cloud electrification of a cold-season thunderstorm: a numerical case study
Developing a climatological simplification of aerosols to enter the cloud microphysics of a global climate model
Interactions between trade wind clouds and local forcings over the Great Barrier Reef: a case study using convection-permitting simulations
Variability in the properties of the distribution of the relative humidity with respect to ice: implications for contrail formation
Simulating the seeder–feeder impacts on cloud ice and precipitation over the Alps
Cloud response to co-condensation of water and organic vapors over the boreal forest
Distribution and morphology of non-persistent contrail and persistent contrail formation areas in ERA5
Harri Kokkola, Juha Tonttila, Silvia M. Calderón, Sami Romakkaniemi, Antti Lipponen, Aapo Peräkorpi, Tero Mielonen, Edward Gryspeerdt, Timo Henrik Virtanen, Pekka Kolmonen, and Antti Arola
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1533–1543, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1533-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1533-2025, 2025
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Understanding how atmospheric aerosols affect clouds is a scientific challenge. One question is how aerosols affects the amount of cloud water. We used a cloud-scale model to study these effects on marine clouds. The study showed that variations in cloud properties and instrument noise can cause bias in satellite-derived cloud water content. However, our results suggest that for similar weather conditions with well-defined aerosol concentrations, satellite data can reliably track these effects.
Franziska Hellmuth, Tim Carlsen, Anne Sophie Daloz, Robert Oscar David, Haochi Che, and Trude Storelvmo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1353–1383, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1353-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1353-2025, 2025
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This article compares the occurrence of supercooled liquid-containing clouds (sLCCs) and their link to surface snowfall in CloudSat–CALIPSO, ERA5, and the CMIP6 models. Significant discrepancies were found, with ERA5 and CMIP6 consistently overestimating sLCC and snowfall frequency. This bias is likely due to cloud microphysics parameterization. This conclusion has implications for accurately representing cloud phase and snowfall in future climate projections.
Claudia Christine Stephan and Bjorn Stevens
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1209–1226, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1209-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1209-2025, 2025
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Tropical precipitation cluster area and intensity distributions follow power laws, but the physical processes responsible for this behavior remain unknown. We analyze global simulations that realistically represent precipitation processes. We consider Earth-like planets as well as virtual planets to realize different types of large-scale dynamics. Our finding is that power laws in Earth’s precipitation cluster statistics stem from the robust power laws in Earth’s atmospheric wind field.
Seoung Soo Lee, Chang Hoon Jung, Jinho Choi, Young Jun Yoon, Junshik Um, Youtong Zheng, Jianping Guo, Manguttathil G. Manoj, and Sang-Keun Song
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 705–726, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-705-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-705-2025, 2025
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This study attempts to test a general factor that explains differences in the properties of different mixed-phase clouds using a modeling tool. Although this attempt is not to identify a factor that can perfectly explain and represent the properties of different mixed-phase clouds, we believe that this attempt acts as a valuable stepping stone towards a more complete, general way of using climate models to better predict climate change.
Kevin Wolf, Nicolas Bellouin, Olivier Boucher, Susanne Rohs, and Yun Li
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 157–181, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-157-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-157-2025, 2025
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ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis and airborne in situ observations from IAGOS are compared in terms of the representation of the contrail formation potential and the presence of supersaturation. Differences are traced back to biases in ERA5 relative humidity fields. Those biases are addressed by applying a quantile mapping technique that significantly improved contrail estimation based on post-processed ERA5 data.
Marje Prank, Juha Tonttila, Xiaoxia Shang, Sami Romakkaniemi, and Tomi Raatikainen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 183–197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-183-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-183-2025, 2025
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Large primary bioparticles such as pollen can be abundant in the atmosphere. In humid conditions pollen can rupture and release a large number of fine sub-pollen particles (SPPs). The paper investigates what kind of birch pollen concentrations are needed for the pollen and SPPs to start playing a noticeable role in cloud processes and alter precipitation formation. In the studied cases only the largest observed pollen concentrations were able to noticeably alter the precipitation formation.
Luís Filipe Escusa dos Santos, Hannah C. Frostenberg, Alejandro Baró Pérez, Annica M. L. Ekman, Luisa Ickes, and Erik S. Thomson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 119–142, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-119-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-119-2025, 2025
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The Arctic is experiencing enhanced surface warming. The observed decline in Arctic sea-ice extent is projected to lead to an increase in Arctic shipping activity, which may lead to further climatic feedbacks. Using an atmospheric model and results from marine engine experiments that focused on fuel sulfur content reduction and exhaust wet scrubbing, we investigate how ship exhaust particles influence the properties of Arctic clouds. Implications for radiative surface processes are discussed.
Nadja Omanovic, Brigitta Goger, and Ulrike Lohmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14145–14175, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14145-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14145-2024, 2024
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We evaluated the numerical weather model ICON in two horizontal resolutions with two bulk microphysics schemes over hilly and complex terrain in Switzerland and Austria, respectively. We focused on the model's ability to simulate mid-level clouds in summer and winter. By combining observational data from two different field campaigns, we show that an increase in the horizontal resolution and a more advanced cloud microphysics scheme is strongly beneficial for cloud representation.
Cornelis Schwenk and Annette Miltenberger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14073–14099, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14073-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14073-2024, 2024
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Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) transport moisture into the upper atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas. This transport is not well understood, and the role of rapidly rising air is unclear. We simulate a WCB and look at fast- and slow-rising air to see how moisture is (differently) transported. We find that for fast-ascending air more ice particles reach higher into the atmosphere and that frozen cloud particles are removed differently than during slow ascent, which has more water vapour.
Jing Yang, Jiaojiao Li, Meilian Chen, Xiaoqin Jing, Yan Yin, Bart Geerts, Zhien Wang, Yubao Liu, Baojun Chen, Shaofeng Hua, Hao Hu, Xiaobo Dong, Ping Tian, Qian Chen, and Yang Gao
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13833–13848, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13833-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13833-2024, 2024
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Detecting unambiguous signatures is vital for examining cloud-seeding impacts, but often, seeding signatures are immersed in natural variability. In this study, reflectivity changes induced by glaciogenic seeding using different AgI concentrations are investigated under various conditions, and a method is developed to estimate the AgI concentration needed to detect unambiguous seeding signatures. The results aid in operational seeding-based decision-making regarding the amount of AgI dispersed.
Florian Sauerland, Niels Souverijns, Anna Possner, Heike Wex, Preben Van Overmeiren, Alexander Mangold, Kwinten Van Weverberg, and Nicole van Lipzig
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13751–13768, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13751-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13751-2024, 2024
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We use a regional climate model, COSMO-CLM², enhanced with a module resolving aerosol processes, to study Antarctic clouds. We prescribe different concentrations of ice-nucleating particles to our model to assess how these clouds respond to concentration changes, validating results with cloud and aerosol observations from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station. Our results show that aerosol–cloud interactions vary with temperature, providing valuable insights into Antarctic cloud dynamics.
Yi Li, Xiaoli Liu, and Hengjia Cai
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13525–13540, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13525-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13525-2024, 2024
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The influence of different aerosol modes on cloud processes remains controversial. We modified the aerosol spectra and concentrations to simulate a warm stratiform cloud process in Jiangxi, China, using the WRF-SBM scheme. Research shows that different aerosol spectra have diverse effects on cloud droplet spectra, cloud development, and the correlation between dispersion (ε) and cloud physics quantities. Compared to cloud droplet concentration, ε is more sensitive to the volume radius.
Fabian Hoffmann, Franziska Glassmeier, and Graham Feingold
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13403–13412, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13403-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13403-2024, 2024
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Clouds constitute a major cooling influence on Earth's climate system by reflecting a large fraction of the incident solar radiation back to space. This ability is controlled by the number of cloud droplets, which is governed by the number of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, laying the foundation for so-called aerosol–cloud–climate interactions. In this study, a simple model to understand the effect of aerosol on cloud water is developed and applied.
Andrea Mosso, Thomas Hocking, and Thorsten Mauritsen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12793–12806, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12793-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12793-2024, 2024
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Clouds play a crucial role in the Earth's energy balance, as they can either warm up or cool down the area they cover depending on their height and depth. They are expected to alter their behaviour under climate change, affecting the warming generated by greenhouse gases. This paper proposes a new method to estimate their overall effect on this warming by simulating a climate where clouds are transparent. Results show that with the model used, clouds have a stabilising effect on climate.
Tao Shi, Yuanjian Yang, Ping Qi, and Simone Lolli
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12807–12822, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12807-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12807-2024, 2024
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This paper explored the formation mechanisms of the amplified canopy urban heat island intensity (ΔCUHII) during heat wave (HW) periods in the megacity of Beijing from the perspectives of mountain–valley breeze and urban morphology. During the mountain breeze phase, high-rise buildings with lower sky view factors (SVFs) had a pronounced effect on the ΔCUHII. During the valley breeze phase, high-rise buildings exerted a dual influence on the ΔCUHII.
Yao-Sheng Chen, Jianhao Zhang, Fabian Hoffmann, Takanobu Yamaguchi, Franziska Glassmeier, Xiaoli Zhou, and Graham Feingold
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12661–12685, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12661-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12661-2024, 2024
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Marine stratocumulus cloud is a type of shallow cloud that covers the vast areas of Earth's surface. It plays an important role in Earth's energy balance by reflecting solar radiation back to space. We used numerical models to simulate a large number of marine stratocumuli with different characteristics. We found that how the clouds develop throughout the day is affected by the level of humidity in the air above the clouds and how closely the clouds connect to the ocean surface.
Alexei Korolev, Zhipeng Qu, Jason Milbrandt, Ivan Heckman, Mélissa Cholette, Mengistu Wolde, Cuong Nguyen, Greg M. McFarquhar, Paul Lawson, and Ann M. Fridlind
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11849–11881, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11849-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11849-2024, 2024
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The phenomenon of high ice water content (HIWC) occurs in mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) when a large number of small ice particles with typical sizes of a few hundred micrometers is found at high altitudes. It was found that secondary ice production in the vicinity of the melting layer plays a key role in the formation and maintenance of HIWC. This study presents a conceptual model of the formation of HIWC in tropical MCSs based on in situ observations and numerical simulation.
Puja Roy, Robert M. Rauber, and Larry Di Girolamo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11653–11678, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11653-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11653-2024, 2024
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Cloud droplet temperature and lifetime impact cloud microphysical processes such as the activation of ice-nucleating particles. We investigate the thermal and radial evolution of supercooled cloud droplets and their surrounding environments with an aim to better understand observed enhanced ice formation at supercooled cloud edges. This analysis shows that the magnitude of droplet cooling during evaporation is greater than estimated from past studies, especially for drier environments.
Mathieu Lachapelle, Mélissa Cholette, and Julie M. Thériault
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11285–11304, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11285-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11285-2024, 2024
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Hazardous precipitation types such as ice pellets and freezing rain are difficult to predict because they are associated with complex microphysical processes. Using Predicted Particle Properties (P3), this work shows that secondary ice production processes increase the amount of ice pellets simulated while decreasing the amount of freezing rain. Moreover, the properties of the simulated precipitation compare well with those that were measured.
Andrew DeLaFrance, Lynn A. McMurdie, Angela K. Rowe, and Andrew J. Heymsfield
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11191–11206, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11191-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11191-2024, 2024
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Using a numerical model, the process whereby falling ice crystals accumulate supercooled liquid water droplets is investigated to elucidate its effects on radar-based measurements and surface precipitation. We demonstrate that this process accounted for 55% of the precipitation during a wintertime storm and is uniquely discernable from other ice crystal growth processes in Doppler velocity measurements. These results have implications for measurements from airborne and spaceborne platforms.
Toshi Matsui, Daniel Hernandez-Deckers, Scott E. Giangrande, Thiago S. Biscaro, Ann Fridlind, and Scott Braun
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10793–10814, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10793-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10793-2024, 2024
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Using computer simulations and real measurements, we discovered that storms over the Amazon were narrower but more intense during the dry periods, producing heavier rain and more ice particles in the clouds. Our research showed that cumulus bubbles played a key role in creating these intense storms. This study can improve the representation of the effect of continental and ocean environments on tropical regions' rainfall patterns in simulations.
Ravi Kumar Reddy Addula, Ingrid de Almeida Ribeiro, Valeria Molinero, and Baron Peters
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10833–10848, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10833-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10833-2024, 2024
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Ice nucleation from supercooled droplets is important in many weather and climate modeling efforts. For experiments where droplets are steadily supercooled from the freezing point, our work combines nucleation theory and survival probability analysis to predict the nucleation spectrum, i.e., droplet freezing probabilities vs. temperature. We use the new framework to extract approximately consistent rate parameters from experiments with different cooling rates and droplet sizes.
Jianhao Zhang, Yao-Sheng Chen, Takanobu Yamaguchi, and Graham Feingold
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10425–10440, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10425-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10425-2024, 2024
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Quantifying cloud response to aerosol perturbations presents a major challenge in understanding the human impact on climate. Using a large number of process-resolving simulations of marine stratocumulus, we show that solar heating drives a negative feedback mechanism that buffers the persistent negative trend in cloud water adjustment after sunrise. This finding has implications for the dependence of the cloud cooling effect on the timing of deliberate aerosol perturbations.
Aaron Wang, Steve Krueger, Sisi Chen, Mikhail Ovchinnikov, Will Cantrell, and Raymond A. Shaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10245–10260, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10245-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10245-2024, 2024
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We employ two methods to examine a laboratory experiment on clouds with both ice and liquid phases. The first assumes well-mixed properties; the second resolves the spatial distribution of turbulence and cloud particles. Results show that while the trends in mean properties generally align, when turbulence is resolved, liquid droplets are not fully depleted by ice due to incomplete mixing. This underscores the threshold of ice mass fraction in distinguishing mixed-phase clouds from ice clouds.
Theresa Kiszler, Davide Ori, and Vera Schemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10039–10053, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10039-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10039-2024, 2024
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Microphysical processes impact the phase-partitioning of clouds. In this study we evaluate these processes while focusing on low-level Arctic clouds. To achieve this we used an extensive simulation set in combination with a new diagnostic tool. This study presents our findings on the relevance of these processes and their behaviour under different thermodynamic regimes.
Shuaiqi Tang, Hailong Wang, Xiang-Yu Li, Jingyi Chen, Armin Sorooshian, Xubin Zeng, Ewan Crosbie, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Luke D. Ziemba, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10073–10092, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10073-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10073-2024, 2024
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We examined marine boundary layer clouds and their interactions with aerosols in the E3SM single-column model (SCM) for a case study. The SCM shows good agreement when simulating the clouds with high-resolution models. It reproduces the relationship between cloud droplet and aerosol particle number concentrations as produced in global models. However, the relationship between cloud liquid water and droplet number concentration is different, warranting further investigation.
Tim Lüttmer, Peter Spichtinger, and Axel Seifert
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2157, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2157, 2024
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We investigate ice formation pathways in idealized convective clouds using a novel microphysics scheme, that distinguishes between five ice classes each with their unique formation mechanism. Ice crystals from rime splintering forms the lowermost layer of ice crystals around the updraft core. The majority of ice crystals in the anvil of the convective cloud stems from frozen droplets. Ice stemming from homogeneous and deposition nucleation was only relevant in the overshoot.
Suf Lorian and Guy Dagan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9323–9338, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9323-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9323-2024, 2024
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We examine the combined effect of aerosols and sea surface temperature (SST) on clouds under equilibrium conditions in cloud-resolving radiative–convective equilibrium simulations. We demonstrate that the aerosol–cloud interaction's effect on top-of-atmosphere energy gain strongly depends on the underlying SST, while the shortwave part of the spectrum is significantly more sensitive to SST. Furthermore, increasing aerosols influences upper-troposphere stability and thus anvil cloud fraction.
Jianqi Zhao, Xiaoyan Ma, Johannes Quaas, and Hailing Jia
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9101–9118, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9101-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9101-2024, 2024
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We explore aerosol–cloud interactions in liquid-phase clouds over eastern China and its adjacent ocean in winter based on the WRF-Chem–SBM model, which couples a spectral-bin microphysics scheme and an online aerosol module. Our study highlights the differences in aerosol–cloud interactions between land and ocean and between precipitation clouds and non-precipitation clouds, and it differentiates and quantifies their underlying mechanisms.
Je-Yun Chun, Robert Wood, Peter N. Blossey, and Sarah J. Doherty
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2439, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2439, 2024
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This study explores how aerosols affect clouds transitioning from stratocumulus to cumulus along trade winds under varying atmospheric conditions. We found that aerosols typically reduce precipitation and raise cloud height, but their impact changes when subsidence changes by aerosol enhancement are considered. Our findings indicate that the cooling effect of aerosols might be overestimated if these atmospheric changes are not accounted for.
Ann Kristin Naumann, Monika Esch, and Bjorn Stevens
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2268, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2268, 2024
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This study explores how uncertainties in the representation of microphysical processes affect the tropical condensate distribution in the global storm-resolving model ICON. The results point to the importance of the fall speed of hydrometeor particles and to a simple relationship: the faster a condensate falls, the less there is of it. Implications for the energy balance and precipitation properties are discussed.
Shiye Huang, Jing Yang, Qian Chen, Jiaojiao Li, Qilin Zhang, and Fengxia Guo
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2013, 2024
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Aerosol and secondary ice production are both vital to charge separation in thunderstorms, but the relative importance of different SIP processes to cloud electrification under different aerosol conditions is not well understood. In this study, we show in a clean environment, the shattering of freezing drops has the greatest effect on the charging rate, while in a polluted environment, both rime splintering and the shattering of freezing drops have a significant effect on cloud electrification.
Thomas D. DeWitt and Timothy J. Garrett
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8457–8472, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8457-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8457-2024, 2024
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There is considerable disagreement on mathematical parameters that describe the number of clouds of different sizes as well as the size of the largest clouds. Both are key defining characteristics of Earth's atmosphere. A previous study provided an incorrect explanation for the disagreement. Instead, the disagreement may be explained by prior studies not properly accounting for the size of their measurement domain. We offer recommendations for how the domain size can be accounted for.
Sarah Wilson Kemsley, Paulo Ceppi, Hendrik Andersen, Jan Cermak, Philip Stier, and Peer Nowack
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8295–8316, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8295-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8295-2024, 2024
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Aiming to inform parameter selection for future observational constraint analyses, we incorporate five candidate meteorological drivers specifically targeting high clouds into a cloud controlling factor framework within a range of spatial domain sizes. We find a discrepancy between optimal domain size for predicting locally and globally aggregated cloud radiative anomalies and identify upper-tropospheric static stability as an important high-cloud controlling factor.
Ye Liu, Yun Qian, Larry K. Berg, Zhe Feng, Jianfeng Li, Jingyi Chen, and Zhao Yang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8165–8181, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8165-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8165-2024, 2024
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Deep convection under various large-scale meteorological patterns (LSMPs) shows distinct precipitation features. In southeastern Texas, mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) contribute significantly to precipitation year-round, while isolated deep convection (IDC) is prominent in summer and fall. Self-organizing maps (SOMs) reveal convection can occur without large-scale lifting or moisture convergence. MCSs and IDC events have distinct life cycles influenced by specific LSMPs.
Xiaoran Guo, Jianping Guo, Tianmeng Chen, Ning Li, Fan Zhang, and Yuping Sun
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8067–8083, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8067-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8067-2024, 2024
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The prediction of downhill thunderstorms (DSs) remains elusive. We propose an objective method to identify DSs, based on which enhanced and dissipated DSs are discriminated. A radar wind profiler (RWP) mesonet is used to derive divergence and vertical velocity. The mid-troposphere divergence and prevailing westerlies enhance the intensity of DSs, whereas low-level divergence is observed when the DS dissipates. The findings highlight the key role that an RWP mesonet plays in the evolution of DSs.
Sina Hofer, Klaus Gierens, and Susanne Rohs
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7911–7925, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7911-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7911-2024, 2024
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We try to improve the forecast of ice supersaturation (ISS) and potential persistent contrails using data on dynamical quantities in addition to temperature and relative humidity in a modern kind of regression model. Although the results are improved, they are not good enough for flight routing. The origin of the problem is the strong overlap of probability densities conditioned on cases with and without ice-supersaturated regions (ISSRs) in the important range of 70–100 %.
Naser Mahfouz, Johannes Mülmenstädt, and Susannah Burrows
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7253–7260, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7253-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7253-2024, 2024
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Climate models are our primary tool to probe past, present, and future climate states unlike the more recent observation record. By constructing a hypothetical model configuration, we show that present-day correlations are insufficient to predict a persistent uncertainty in climate projection (how much sun because clouds will reflect in a changing climate). We hope our result will contribute to the scholarly conversation on better utilizing observations to constrain climate uncertainties.
Britta Schäfer, Robert Oscar David, Paraskevi Georgakaki, Julie Thérèse Pasquier, Georgia Sotiropoulou, and Trude Storelvmo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7179–7202, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7179-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7179-2024, 2024
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Mixed-phase clouds, i.e., clouds consisting of ice and supercooled water, are very common in the Arctic. However, how these clouds form is often not correctly represented in standard weather models. We show that both ice crystal concentrations in the cloud and precipitation from the cloud can be improved in the model when aerosol concentrations are prescribed from observations and when more processes for ice multiplication, i.e., the production of new ice particles from existing ice, are added.
Nan Sun, Gaopeng Lu, and Yunfei Fu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7123–7135, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7123-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7123-2024, 2024
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Microphysical characteristics of convective overshooting are essential but poorly understood, and we examine them by using the latest data. (1) Convective overshooting events mainly occur over NC (Northeast China) and northern MEC (Middle and East China). (2) Radar reflectivity of convective overshooting over NC accounts for a higher proportion below the zero level, while the opposite is the case for MEC and SC (South China). (3) Droplets of convective overshooting are large but sparse.
Liu Yang, Saisai Ding, Jing-Wu Liu, and Su-Ping Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6809–6824, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6809-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6809-2024, 2024
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Advection fog occurs when warm and moist air moves over a cold sea surface. In this situation, the temperature of the foggy air usually drops below the sea surface temperature (SST), particularly at night. High-resolution simulations show that the cooling effect of longwave radiation from the top of the fog layer permeates through the fog, resulting in a cooling of the surface air below SST. This study emphasizes the significance of monitoring air temperature to enhance sea fog forecasting.
Nadja Omanovic, Sylvaine Ferrachat, Christopher Fuchs, Jan Henneberger, Anna J. Miller, Kevin Ohneiser, Fabiola Ramelli, Patric Seifert, Robert Spirig, Huiying Zhang, and Ulrike Lohmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6825–6844, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6825-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6825-2024, 2024
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We present simulations with a high-resolution numerical weather prediction model to study the growth of ice crystals in low clouds following glaciogenic seeding. We show that the simulated ice crystals grow slower than observed and do not consume as many cloud droplets as measured in the field. This may have implications for forecasting precipitation, as the ice phase is crucial for precipitation at middle and high latitudes.
Matthew W. Christensen, Peng Wu, Adam C. Varble, Heng Xiao, and Jerome D. Fast
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6455–6476, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6455-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6455-2024, 2024
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Clouds are essential to keep Earth cooler by reflecting sunlight back to space. We show that an increase in aerosol concentration suppresses precipitation in clouds, causing them to accumulate water and expand in a polluted environment with stronger turbulence and radiative cooling. This process enhances their reflectance by 51 %. It is therefore prudent to account for cloud fraction changes in assessments of aerosol–cloud interactions to improve predictions of climate change.
Jing Yang, Shiye Huang, Tianqi Yang, Qilin Zhang, Yuting Deng, and Yubao Liu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5989–6010, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5989-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5989-2024, 2024
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This study contributes to filling the dearth of understanding the impacts of different secondary ice production (SIP) processes on the cloud electrification in cold-season thunderstorms. The results suggest that SIP, especially the rime-splintering process and the shattering of freezing drops, has significant impacts on the charge structure of the storm. In addition, the modeled radar composite reflectivity and flash rate are improved after implementing the SIP processes in the model.
Ulrike Proske, Sylvaine Ferrachat, and Ulrike Lohmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5907–5933, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5907-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5907-2024, 2024
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Climate models include treatment of aerosol particles because these influence clouds and radiation. Over time their representation has grown increasingly detailed. This complexity may hinder our understanding of model behaviour. Thus here we simplify the aerosol representation of our climate model by prescribing mean concentrations, which saves run time and helps to discover unexpected model behaviour. We conclude that simplifications provide a new perspective for model study and development.
Wenhui Zhao, Yi Huang, Steven Siems, Michael Manton, and Daniel Harrison
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5713–5736, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5713-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5713-2024, 2024
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We studied how shallow clouds and rain behave over the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) using a detailed weather model. We found that the shape of the land, especially mountains, and particles in the air play big roles in influencing these clouds. Surprisingly, the sea's temperature had a smaller effect. Our research helps us understand the GBR's climate and how various factors can influence it, where the importance of the local cloud in thermal coral bleaching has recently been identified.
Sidiki Sanogo, Olivier Boucher, Nicolas Bellouin, Audran Borella, Kevin Wolf, and Susanne Rohs
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5495–5511, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5495-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5495-2024, 2024
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Relative humidity relative to ice (RHi) is a key variable in the formation of cirrus clouds and contrails. This study shows that the properties of the probability density function of RHi differ between the tropics and higher latitudes. In line with RHi and temperature variability, aircraft are likely to produce more contrails with bioethanol and liquid hydrogen as fuel. The impact of this fuel change decreases with decreasing pressure levels but increases from high latitudes to the tropics.
Zane Dedekind, Ulrike Proske, Sylvaine Ferrachat, Ulrike Lohmann, and David Neubauer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5389–5404, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5389-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5389-2024, 2024
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Ice particles precipitating into lower clouds from an upper cloud, the seeder–feeder process, can enhance precipitation. A numerical modeling study conducted in the Swiss Alps found that 48 % of observed clouds were overlapping, with the seeder–feeder process occurring in 10 % of these clouds. Inhibiting the seeder–feeder process reduced the surface precipitation and ice particle growth rates, which were further reduced when additional ice multiplication processes were included in the model.
Liine Heikkinen, Daniel G. Partridge, Sara Blichner, Wei Huang, Rahul Ranjan, Paul Bowen, Emanuele Tovazzi, Tuukka Petäjä, Claudia Mohr, and Ilona Riipinen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5117–5147, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5117-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5117-2024, 2024
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The organic vapor condensation with water vapor (co-condensation) in rising air below clouds is modeled in this work over the boreal forest because the forest air is rich in organic vapors. We show that the number of cloud droplets can increase by 20 % if considering co-condensation. The enhancements are even larger if the air contains many small, naturally produced aerosol particles. Such conditions are most frequently met in spring in the boreal forest.
Kevin Wolf, Nicolas Bellouin, and Olivier Boucher
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5009–5024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5009-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5009-2024, 2024
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The contrail formation potential and its tempo-spatial distribution are estimated for the North Atlantic flight corridor. Meteorological conditions of temperature and relative humidity are taken from the ERA5 re-analysis and IAGOS. Based on IAGOS flight tracks, crossing length, size, orientation, frequency of occurrence, and overlap of persistent contrail formation areas are determined. The presented conclusions might provide a guide for statistical flight track optimization to reduce contrails.
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Short summary
Smoke from African fires is frequently transported across the Atlantic Ocean, where it interacts with clouds. We simulate the interaction of the smoke with the clouds, and the consequences of this for the solar radiation the clouds reflect. The simulations use a new regional configuration of the UK Met Office climate model. Our simulations indicate that the properties of the clouds, in particular their height and reflectivity, and the fractional cloud cover, are strongly affected by the smoke.
Smoke from African fires is frequently transported across the Atlantic Ocean, where it interacts...
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