Articles | Volume 19, issue 18
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11765-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11765-2019
Research article
 | 
23 Sep 2019
Research article |  | 23 Sep 2019

In situ constraints on the vertical distribution of global aerosol

Duncan Watson-Parris, Nick Schutgens, Carly Reddington, Kirsty J. Pringle, Dantong Liu, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Ken S. Carslaw, and Philip Stier

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Cited articles

Andrews, S. J., Jones, C. E., and Carpenter, L. J.: Aircraft measurements of very short-lived halocarbons over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 1005–01010, https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50141, 2013. 
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Bergman, T., Kerminen, V.-M., Korhonen, H., Lehtinen, K. J., Makkonen, R., Arola, A., Mielonen, T., Romakkaniemi, S., Kulmala, M., and Kokkola, H.: Evaluation of the sectional aerosol microphysics module SALSA implementation in ECHAM5-HAM aerosol-climate model, Geosci. Model Dev., 5, 845–868, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-5-845-2012, 2012. 
Berkoff, T. A., Welton, E. J., Campbell, J. R., Valencia, S., Spinhirne, J. D., Tsay, S.-C., and Holben, B. N.: Observations of Aerosols using the Micro-Pulse Lidar NETwork (MPLNET), IGARSS 2004. 2004 IEEE Int. Geosci. Remote Sens. Symp., 3, 2208–2211, https://doi.org/10.1109/igarss.2004.1370799, 2004. 
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Short summary
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.
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