Cloud drop number concentrations over the western North Atlantic Ocean: seasonal cycle, aerosol interrelationships, and other influential factors

Dadashazar, Hossein; Painemal, David; Alipanah, Majid; Brunke, Michael; Chellappan, Seethala; Corral, Andrea F.; Crosbie, Ewan; Kirschler, Simon; Liu, Hongyu; Moore, Richard H.; Robinson, Claire; Scarino, Amy Jo; Shook, Michael; Sinclair, Kenneth; Thornhill, K. Lee; Voigt, Christiane; Wang, Hailong; Winstead, Edward; Zeng, Xubin; Ziemba, Luke; Zuidema, Paquita; Sorooshian, Armin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10499-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10499-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Marine aerosols, trace gases, and clouds over the North Atlantic...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10499-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 13

Research article

|

13 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 13 Jul 2021

Cloud drop number concentrations over the western North Atlantic Ocean: seasonal cycle, aerosol interrelationships, and other influential factors

Hossein Dadashazar, David Painemal, Majid Alipanah, Michael Brunke, Seethala Chellappan, Andrea F. Corral, Ewan Crosbie, Simon Kirschler, Hongyu Liu, Richard H. Moore, Claire Robinson, Amy Jo Scarino, Michael Shook, Kenneth Sinclair, K. Lee Thornhill, Christiane Voigt, Hailong Wang, Edward Winstead, Xubin Zeng, Luke Ziemba, Paquita Zuidema, and Armin Sorooshian

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10499-2021-supplement

Data sets

CERES Edition-2 Cloud Property Retrievals Using TRMM VIRS and Terra and Aqua MODIS Data - Part I: Algorithms (https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/data/) P. Minnis, S. Sun-Mack, D. F. Young, P. W. Heck, D. P. Garber, Y. Chen, D. A. Spangenberg, R. F. Arduini, Q. Z. Trepte, W. L. Smith, J. K. Ayers, S. C. Gibson, W. F. Miller, G. Hong, V. Chakrapani, Y. Takano, K. N. Liou, Y. Xie, and P. Yang https://doi.org/10.1109/Tgrs.2011.2144601

CALIPSO LID L2 Standard HDF File - Version 3.30 CALIPSO https://subset.larc.nasa.gov/calipso/

The CHRS Data Portal, an easily accessible public repository for PERSIANN global satellite precipitation data (https://chrsdata.eng.uci.edu/) P. Nguyen, E. J. Shearer, H. Tran, M. Ombadi, N. Hayatbini, T. Palacios, P. Huynh, D. Braithwaite, G. Updegraff, K. Hsu, B. Kuligowski, W. S. Logan, and S. Sorooshian https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.296

MERRA-2 Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The Two-Column Aerosol Project: Phase IOverview and impact of elevated aerosol layers on aerosol optical depth (https://adc.arm.gov/discovery) Berg, L. K., Fast, J. D., Barnard, J. C., et al. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015jd023848

ACTIVATE Falcon In Situ Aerosol Data NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC https://doi.org/10.5067/ASDC/ACTIVATE_Aerosol_AircraftInSitu_Falcon_Data_1

ACTIVATE Falcon In Situ Cloud Data NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC https://doi.org/10.5067/ASDC/ACTIVATE_Cloud_AircraftInSitu_Falcon_Data_1

ACTIVATE Falcon In-Situ Meteorological and Navigational Data NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC https://doi.org/10.5067/ASDC/ACTIVATE_MetNav_AircraftInSitu_Falcon_Data_1

Model code and software

Python Accumulated Local Effects package M. Jumelle, A. Kuhn-Regnier, S. Rajaratnam, and A. Mahima https://github.com/blent-ai/ALEPython

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Short summary

This study investigates the seasonal cycle of cloud drop number concentration (Nd) over the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNAO) using multiple datasets. Reasons for the puzzling discrepancy between the seasonal cycles of Nd and aerosol concentration were identified. Results indicate that Nd is highest in winter (when aerosol proxy values are often lowest) due to conditions both linked to cold-air outbreaks and that promote greater droplet activation.