Estimating precipitation susceptibility in warm marine clouds using multi-sensor aerosol and cloud products from A-Train satellites

Abstract. Precipitation susceptibility to aerosol perturbation plays a key role in understanding aerosol–cloud interactions and constraining aerosol indirect effects. However, large discrepancies exist in the previous satellite estimates of precipitation susceptibility. In this paper, multi-sensor aerosol and cloud products, including those from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), CloudSat, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) from June 2006 to April 2011 are analyzed to estimate precipitation frequency susceptibility S_POP, precipitation intensity susceptibility S_I, and precipitation rate susceptibility S_R in warm marine clouds. We find that S_POP strongly depends on atmospheric stability, with larger values under more stable environments. Our results show that precipitation susceptibility for drizzle (with a −15 dBZ rainfall threshold) is significantly different than that for rain (with a 0 dBZ rainfall threshold). Onset of drizzle is not as readily suppressed in warm clouds as rainfall while precipitation intensity susceptibility is generally smaller for rain than for drizzle. We find that S_POP derived with respect to aerosol index (AI) is about one-third of S_POP derived with respect to cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC). Overall, S_POP demonstrates relatively robust features throughout independent liquid water path (LWP) products and diverse rain products. In contrast, the behaviors of S_I and S_R are subject to LWP or rain products used to derive them. Recommendations are further made for how to better use these metrics to quantify aerosol–cloud–precipitation interactions in observations and models.