Articles | Volume 21, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5513-2021
© Author(s) 2021. 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-21-5513-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
09 Apr 2021
Research article |
| 09 Apr 2021
| 09 Apr 2021
Joint cloud water path and rainwater path retrievals from airborne ORACLES observations
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS), University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Tristan L'Ecuyer
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA
Kenneth Sinclair
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA
Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Columbia, MD 21046,
USA
Bastiaan van Diedenhoven
Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, USA
Siddhant Gupta
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS), University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Greg McFarquhar
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS), University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Joseph R. O'Brien
School of Aerospace Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202, USA
Brian Cairns
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA
Andrzej P. Wasilewski
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA
SciSpace LLC, New York City, NY, USA
Mikhail Alexandrov
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA
Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, USA
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Meng Gao, Bryan A. Franz, Peng-Wang Zhai, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Andrew M. Sayer, Xiaoguang Xu, J. Vanderlei Martins, Brian Cairns, Patricia Castellanos, Guangliang Fu, Neranga Hannadige, Otto Hasekamp, Yongxiang Hu, Amir Ibrahim, Frederick Patt, Anin Puthukkudy, and P. Jeremy Werdell
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A cloud detection mask algorithm is developed for the upcoming Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment (PREFIRE) satellite mission to be launched by NASA in May 2024. The cloud mask is compared to "truth" and is capable of detecting over 90 % of all clouds globally tested with simulated data, and about 87 % of all clouds in the Arctic region.
Rose Marie Miller, Robert M. Rauber, Larry Di Girolamo, Matthew Rilloraza, Dongwei Fu, Greg M. McFarquhar, Stephen W. Nesbitt, Luke D. Ziemba, Sarah Woods, and Kenneth Lee Thornhill
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Meng Gao, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Bryan A. Franz, Peng-Wang Zhai, Brian Cairns, Xiaoguang Xu, and J. Vanderlei Martins
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Emily D. Lenhardt, Lan Gao, Jens Redemann, Feng Xu, Sharon P. Burton, Brian Cairns, Ian Chang, Richard A. Ferrare, Chris A. Hostetler, Pablo E. Saide, Calvin Howes, Yohei Shinozuka, Snorre Stamnes, Mary Kacarab, Amie Dobracki, Jenny Wong, Steffen Freitag, and Athanasios Nenes
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Small atmospheric particles, such as smoke from wildfires or pollutants from human activities, impact cloud properties, and clouds have a strong influence on climate. To better understand the distributions of these particles, we develop relationships to derive their concentrations from remote sensing measurements from an instrument called a lidar. Our method is reliable for smoke particles, and similar steps can be taken to develop relationships for other particle types.
Ruhi S. Humphries, Melita D. Keywood, Jason P. Ward, James Harnwell, Simon P. Alexander, Andrew R. Klekociuk, Keiichiro Hara, Ian M. McRobert, Alain Protat, Joel Alroe, Luke T. Cravigan, Branka Miljevic, Zoran D. Ristovski, Robyn Schofield, Stephen R. Wilson, Connor J. Flynn, Gourihar R. Kulkarni, Gerald G. Mace, Greg M. McFarquhar, Scott D. Chambers, Alastair G. Williams, and Alan D. Griffiths
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 3749–3777, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3749-2023, 2023
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Observations of aerosols in pristine regions are rare but are vital to constraining the natural baseline from which climate simulations are calculated. Here we present recent seasonal observations of aerosols from the Southern Ocean and contrast them with measurements from Antarctica, Australia and regionally relevant voyages. Strong seasonal cycles persist, but striking differences occur at different latitudes. This study highlights the need for more long-term observations in remote regions.
Andrew M. Sayer, Luca Lelli, Brian Cairns, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Amir Ibrahim, Kirk D. Knobelspiesse, Sergey Korkin, and P. Jeremy Werdell
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 969–996, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-969-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-969-2023, 2023
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This paper presents a method to estimate the height of the top of clouds above Earth's surface using satellite measurements. It is based on light absorption by oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which darkens the signal that a satellite will see at certain wavelengths of light. Clouds "shield" the satellite from some of this darkening, dependent on cloud height (and other factors), because clouds scatter light at these wavelengths. The method will be applied to the future NASA PACE mission.
Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Otto P. Hasekamp, Brian Cairns, Gregory L. Schuster, Snorre Stamnes, Michael Shook, and Luke Ziemba
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 7411–7434, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-7411-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-7411-2022, 2022
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The strong variability in the chemistry of atmospheric particulate matter affects the amount of water aerosols absorb and their effect on climate. We present a remote sensing method to determine the amount of water in particulate matter. Its application to airborne instruments indicates that the observed aerosols have rather low water contents and low fractions of soluble particles. Future satellites will be able to yield global aerosol water uptake data.
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.
Siddhant Gupta, Greg M. McFarquhar, Joseph R. O'Brien, Michael R. Poellot, David J. Delene, Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Feng Xu, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12923–12943, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12923-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12923-2022, 2022
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The ability of NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites to retrieve cloud properties and estimate the changes in cloud properties due to aerosol–cloud interactions (ACI) was examined. There was good agreement between satellite retrievals and in situ measurements over the southeast Atlantic Ocean. This suggests that, combined with information on aerosol properties, satellite retrievals of cloud properties can be used to study ACI over larger domains and longer timescales in the absence of in situ data.
Alyson Rose Douglas and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-688, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-688, 2022
Revised manuscript not accepted
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Aerosol, or small particles released by human activities, enter the atmosphere and eventually interact with clouds in what we term aerosol-cloud interactions. As more aerosol enter a cloud, they act as cloud droplet nuclei, increasing the number of cloud droplets in a cloud and delaying rain formation, leading to a larger cloud. We use machine learning and found that these interactions lead to 1.27 % more cloudiness on Earth and offset ~1/4 of the warming due to CO2.
Zhipeng Qu, Alexei Korolev, Jason A. Milbrandt, Ivan Heckman, Yongjie Huang, Greg M. McFarquhar, Hugh Morrison, Mengistu Wolde, and Cuong Nguyen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12287–12310, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12287-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12287-2022, 2022
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Secondary ice production (SIP) is an important physical phenomenon that results in an increase in the cloud ice particle concentration and can have a significant impact on the evolution of clouds. Here, idealized simulations of a tropical convective system were conducted. Agreement between the simulations and observations highlights the impacts of SIP on the maintenance of tropical convection in nature and the importance of including the modelling of SIP in numerical weather prediction models.
Meng Gao, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Bryan A. Franz, Peng-Wang Zhai, Andrew M. Sayer, Amir Ibrahim, Brian Cairns, Otto Hasekamp, Yongxiang Hu, Vanderlei Martins, P. Jeremy Werdell, and Xiaoguang Xu
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 4859–4879, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4859-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4859-2022, 2022
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In this work, we assessed the pixel-wise retrieval uncertainties on aerosol and ocean color derived from multi-angle polarimetric measurements. Standard error propagation methods are used to compute the uncertainties. A flexible framework is proposed to evaluate how representative these uncertainties are compared with real retrieval errors. Meanwhile, to assist operational data processing, we optimized the computational speed to evaluate the retrieval uncertainties based on neural networks.
Assia Arouf, Hélène Chepfer, Thibault Vaillant de Guélis, Marjolaine Chiriaco, Matthew D. Shupe, Rodrigo Guzman, Artem Feofilov, Patrick Raberanto, Tristan S. L'Ecuyer, Seiji Kato, and Michael R. Gallagher
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3893–3923, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3893-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3893-2022, 2022
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We proposed new estimates of the surface longwave (LW) cloud radiative effect (CRE) derived from observations collected by a space-based lidar on board the CALIPSO satellite and radiative transfer computations. Our estimate appropriately captures the surface LW CRE annual variability over bright polar surfaces, and it provides a dataset more than 13 years long.
Dongwei Fu, Larry Di Girolamo, Robert M. Rauber, Greg M. McFarquhar, Stephen W. Nesbitt, Jesse Loveridge, Yulan Hong, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Brian Cairns, Mikhail D. Alexandrov, Paul Lawson, Sarah Woods, Simone Tanelli, Sebastian Schmidt, Chris Hostetler, and Amy Jo Scarino
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8259–8285, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8259-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8259-2022, 2022
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Satellite-retrieved cloud microphysics are widely used in climate research because of their central role in water and energy cycles. Here, we provide the first detailed investigation of retrieved cloud drop sizes from in situ and various satellite and airborne remote sensing techniques applied to real cumulus cloud fields. We conclude that the most widely used passive remote sensing method employed in climate research produces high biases of 6–8 µm (60 %–80 %) caused by 3-D radiative effects.
Matthew S. Norgren, John Wood, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Snorre A. Stamnes, Luke D. Ziemba, Ewan C. Crosbie, Michael A. Shook, A. Scott Kittelman, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Stephen Broccardo, Steffen Freitag, and Jeffrey S. Reid
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 1373–1394, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1373-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1373-2022, 2022
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A new spectral instrument (SPN-S), with the ability to partition solar radiation into direct and diffuse components, is used in airborne settings to study the optical properties of aerosols and cirrus. It is a low-cost and mechanically simple system but has higher measurement uncertainty than existing standards. This challenge is overcome by utilizing the unique measurement capabilities to develop new retrieval techniques. Validation is done with data from two NASA airborne research campaigns.
Siddhant Gupta, Greg M. McFarquhar, Joseph R. O'Brien, Michael R. Poellot, David J. Delene, Rose M. Miller, and Jennifer D. Small Griswold
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 2769–2793, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2769-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2769-2022, 2022
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This study evaluates the impact of biomass burning aerosols on precipitation in marine stratocumulus clouds using observations from the NASA ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES) field campaign over the Southeast Atlantic. Instances of contact and separation between aerosol and cloud layers show polluted clouds have a lower precipitation rate and a lower precipitation susceptibility. This information will help improve cloud representation in Earth system models.
Yongjie Huang, Wei Wu, Greg M. McFarquhar, Ming Xue, Hugh Morrison, Jason Milbrandt, Alexei V. Korolev, Yachao Hu, Zhipeng Qu, Mengistu Wolde, Cuong Nguyen, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, and Ivan Heckman
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 2365–2384, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2365-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2365-2022, 2022
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Numerous small ice crystals in tropical convective storms are difficult to detect and could be potentially hazardous for commercial aircraft. Previous numerical simulations failed to reproduce this phenomenon and hypothesized that key microphysical processes are still lacking in current models to realistically simulate the phenomenon. This study uses numerical experiments to confirm the dominant role of secondary ice production in the formation of these large numbers of small ice crystals.
Michael R. Gallagher, Matthew D. Shupe, Hélène Chepfer, and Tristan L'Ecuyer
The Cryosphere, 16, 435–450, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-435-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-435-2022, 2022
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By using direct observations of snowfall and mass changes, the variability of daily snowfall mass input to the Greenland ice sheet is quantified for the first time. With new methods we conclude that cyclones west of Greenland in summer contribute the most snowfall, with 1.66 Gt per occurrence. These cyclones are contextualized in the broader Greenland climate, and snowfall is validated against mass changes to verify the results. Snowfall and mass change observations are shown to agree well.
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.
David Painemal, Douglas Spangenberg, William L. Smith Jr., Patrick Minnis, Brian Cairns, Richard H. Moore, Ewan Crosbie, Claire Robinson, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Edward L. Winstead, and Luke Ziemba
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 6633–6646, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6633-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6633-2021, 2021
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Cloud properties derived from satellite sensors are critical for the global monitoring of climate. This study evaluates satellite-based cloud properties over the North Atlantic using airborne data collected during NAAMES. Satellite observations of droplet size and cloud optical depth tend to compare well with NAAMES data. The analysis indicates that the satellite pixel resolution and the specific viewing geometry need to be taken into account in research applications.
Alyson Douglas and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15103–15114, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15103-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15103-2021, 2021
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When aerosols enter the atmosphere, they interact with the clouds above in what we term aerosol–cloud interactions and lead to a series of reactions which delay the onset of rain. This delay may lead to increased rain rates, or invigoration, when the cloud eventually rains. We show that aerosol leads to invigoration in certain environments. The strength of the invigoration depends on how large the cloud is, which suggests that it is highly tied to the organization of the cloud system.
Rose M. Miller, Greg M. McFarquhar, Robert M. Rauber, Joseph R. O'Brien, Siddhant Gupta, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Amie N. Dobracki, Arthur J. Sedlacek, Sharon P. Burton, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, and Caroline Dang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14815–14831, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14815-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14815-2021, 2021
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A large stratocumulus cloud deck resides off the west coast of central Africa. Biomass burning in Africa produces a large plume of aerosol that is carried by the wind over this stratocumulus cloud deck. This paper shows that particles with sizes from 0.01 to 1 mm reside within this plume. Past studies have shown that biomass burning produces such particles, but this is the first study to show that they can be transported westward, over long distances, to the Atlantic stratocumulus cloud deck.
Ruhi S. Humphries, Melita D. Keywood, Sean Gribben, Ian M. McRobert, Jason P. Ward, Paul Selleck, Sally Taylor, James Harnwell, Connor Flynn, Gourihar R. Kulkarni, Gerald G. Mace, Alain Protat, Simon P. Alexander, and Greg McFarquhar
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 12757–12782, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12757-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12757-2021, 2021
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The Southern Ocean region is one of the most pristine in the world and serves as an important proxy for the pre-industrial atmosphere. Improving our understanding of the natural processes in this region is likely to result in the largest reductions in the uncertainty of climate and earth system models. In this paper we present a statistical summary of the latitudinal gradient of aerosol and cloud condensation nuclei concentrations obtained from five voyages spanning the Southern Ocean.
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
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10499–10526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10499-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10499-2021, 2021
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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.
Erik Johansson, Abhay Devasthale, Michael Tjernström, Annica M. L. Ekman, Klaus Wyser, and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 4087–4101, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4087-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4087-2021, 2021
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Understanding the coupling of clouds to large-scale circulation is a grand challenge for the climate community. Cloud radiative heating (CRH) is a key parameter in this coupling and is therefore essential to model realistically. We, therefore, evaluate a climate model against satellite observations. Our findings indicate good agreement in the seasonal pattern of CRH even if the magnitude differs. We also find that increasing the horizontal resolution in the model has little effect on the CRH.
Meng Gao, Bryan A. Franz, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Peng-Wang Zhai, Vanderlei Martins, Sharon Burton, Brian Cairns, Richard Ferrare, Joel Gales, Otto Hasekamp, Yongxiang Hu, Amir Ibrahim, Brent McBride, Anin Puthukkudy, P. Jeremy Werdell, and Xiaoguang Xu
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 4083–4110, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-4083-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-4083-2021, 2021
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Multi-angle polarimetric measurements can retrieve accurate aerosol properties over complex atmosphere and ocean systems; however, most retrieval algorithms require high computational costs. We propose a deep neural network (NN) forward model to represent the radiative transfer simulation of coupled atmosphere and ocean systems and then conduct simultaneous aerosol and ocean color retrievals on AirHARP measurements. The computational acceleration is 103 times with CPU or 104 times with GPU.
Yongjie Huang, Wei Wu, Greg M. McFarquhar, Xuguang Wang, Hugh Morrison, Alexander Ryzhkov, Yachao Hu, Mengistu Wolde, Cuong Nguyen, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Jason Milbrandt, Alexei V. Korolev, and Ivan Heckman
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 6919–6944, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6919-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6919-2021, 2021
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Numerous small ice crystals in the tropical convective storms are difficult to detect and could be potentially hazardous for commercial aircraft. This study evaluated the numerical models against the airborne observations and investigated the potential cloud processes that could lead to the production of these large numbers of small ice crystals. It is found that key microphysical processes are still lacking or misrepresented in current numerical models to realistically simulate the phenomenon.
Siddhant Gupta, Greg M. McFarquhar, Joseph R. O'Brien, David J. Delene, Michael R. Poellot, Amie Dobracki, James R. Podolske, Jens Redemann, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, and Kristina Pistone
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 4615–4635, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4615-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4615-2021, 2021
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Observations from the 2016 NASA ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES) field campaign examine how biomass burning aerosols from southern Africa affect marine stratocumulus cloud decks over the Southeast Atlantic. Instances of contact and separation between aerosols and clouds are examined to quantify the impact of aerosol mixing into cloud top on cloud drop numbers and sizes. This information is needed for improving Earth system models and satellite retrievals.
Jens Redemann, Robert Wood, Paquita Zuidema, Sarah J. Doherty, Bernadette Luna, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Michael S. Diamond, Yohei Shinozuka, Ian Y. Chang, Rei Ueyama, Leonhard Pfister, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Amie N. Dobracki, Arlindo M. da Silva, Karla M. Longo, Meloë S. Kacenelenbogen, Connor J. Flynn, Kristina Pistone, Nichola M. Knox, Stuart J. Piketh, James M. Haywood, Paola Formenti, Marc Mallet, Philip Stier, Andrew S. Ackerman, Susanne E. Bauer, Ann M. Fridlind, Gregory R. Carmichael, Pablo E. Saide, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Brian Cairns, Brent N. Holben, Kirk D. Knobelspiesse, Simone Tanelli, Tristan S. L'Ecuyer, Andrew M. Dzambo, Ousmane O. Sy, Greg M. McFarquhar, Michael R. Poellot, Siddhant Gupta, Joseph R. O'Brien, Athanasios Nenes, Mary Kacarab, Jenny P. S. Wong, Jennifer D. Small-Griswold, Kenneth L. Thornhill, David Noone, James R. Podolske, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Peter Pilewskie, Hong Chen, Sabrina P. Cochrane, Arthur J. Sedlacek, Timothy J. Lang, Eric Stith, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Richard A. Ferrare, Sharon P. Burton, Chris A. Hostetler, David J. Diner, Felix C. Seidel, Steven E. Platnick, Jeffrey S. Myers, Kerry G. Meyer, Douglas A. Spangenberg, Hal Maring, and Lan Gao
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1507–1563, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1507-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1507-2021, 2021
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Southern Africa produces significant biomass burning emissions whose impacts on regional and global climate are poorly understood. ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) is a 5-year NASA investigation designed to study the key processes that determine these climate impacts. The main purpose of this paper is to familiarize the broader scientific community with the ORACLES project, the dataset it produced, and the most important initial findings.
Norman B. Wood and Tristan S. L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 869–888, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-869-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-869-2021, 2021
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Although millimeter-wavelength radar reflectivity observations are used to investigate snowfall properties, their ability to constrain specific properties has not been well-quantified. An information-focused retrieval
method shows how well snowfall properties, including rate and size distribution, are constrained by reflectivity. Sources of uncertainty in snowfall rate are dominated by uncertainties in the retrieved size distribution properties rather than by other retrieval assumptions.
Elin A. McIlhattan, Claire Pettersen, Norman B. Wood, and Tristan S. L'Ecuyer
The Cryosphere, 14, 4379–4404, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4379-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4379-2020, 2020
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Snowfall builds the mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and reduces melt by brightening the surface. We present satellite observations of GrIS snowfall events divided into two regimes: those coincident with ice clouds and those coincident with mixed-phase clouds. Snowfall from ice clouds plays the dominant role in building the GrIS, producing ~ 80 % of total accumulation. The two regimes have similar snowfall frequency in summer, brightening the surface when solar insolation is at its peak.
Johannes Quaas, Antti Arola, Brian Cairns, Matthew Christensen, Hartwig Deneke, Annica M. L. Ekman, Graham Feingold, Ann Fridlind, Edward Gryspeerdt, Otto Hasekamp, Zhanqing Li, Antti Lipponen, Po-Lun Ma, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Athanasios Nenes, Joyce E. Penner, Daniel Rosenfeld, Roland Schrödner, Kenneth Sinclair, Odran Sourdeval, Philip Stier, Matthias Tesche, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15079–15099, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15079-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15079-2020, 2020
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Anthropogenic pollution particles – aerosols – serve as cloud condensation nuclei and thus increase cloud droplet concentration and the clouds' reflection of sunlight (a cooling effect on climate). This Twomey effect is poorly constrained by models and requires satellite data for better quantification. The review summarizes the challenges in properly doing so and outlines avenues for progress towards a better use of aerosol retrievals and better retrievals of droplet concentrations.
Kai-Wei Chang and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12499–12514, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12499-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12499-2020, 2020
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High-altitude clouds in the tropics that reside in the transition layer between the troposphere and stratosphere are important as they influence the amount of water vapor going into the stratosphere. Waves in the atmosphere can influence the temperature and form these high-altitude cirrus clouds. We use satellite observations to explore the connection between atmospheric waves and clouds and show that cirrus clouds occurrence and properties are closely correlated with waves.
Adeyemi A. Adebiyi, Paquita Zuidema, Ian Chang, Sharon P. Burton, and Brian Cairns
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11025–11043, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11025-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11025-2020, 2020
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Over the southeast Atlantic, interactions between the low-level clouds and the overlying smoke aerosols have previously been highlighted, but no study has yet focused on the presence of the mid-level clouds that complicate the aerosol–cloud interactions. Here we show that these optically thin super-cooled mid-level clouds are relatively common, and they frequently occur at the top of the smoke layer between August and October with significant radiative impacts on the low-level clouds.
Anne Sophie Daloz, Marian Mateling, Tristan L'Ecuyer, Mark Kulie, Norm B. Wood, Mikael Durand, Melissa Wrzesien, Camilla W. Stjern, and Ashok P. Dimri
The Cryosphere, 14, 3195–3207, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3195-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3195-2020, 2020
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The total of snow that falls globally is a critical factor governing freshwater availability. To better understand how this resource is impacted by climate change, we need to know how reliable the current observational datasets for snow are. Here, we compare five datasets looking at the snow falling over the mountains versus the other continents. We show that there is a large consensus when looking at fractional contributions but strong dissimilarities when comparing magnitudes.
Kirk Knobelspiesse, Henrique M. J. Barbosa, Christine Bradley, Carol Bruegge, Brian Cairns, Gao Chen, Jacek Chowdhary, Anthony Cook, Antonio Di Noia, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, David J. Diner, Richard Ferrare, Guangliang Fu, Meng Gao, Michael Garay, Johnathan Hair, David Harper, Gerard van Harten, Otto Hasekamp, Mark Helmlinger, Chris Hostetler, Olga Kalashnikova, Andrew Kupchock, Karla Longo De Freitas, Hal Maring, J. Vanderlei Martins, Brent McBride, Matthew McGill, Ken Norlin, Anin Puthukkudy, Brian Rheingans, Jeroen Rietjens, Felix C. Seidel, Arlindo da Silva, Martijn Smit, Snorre Stamnes, Qian Tan, Sebastian Val, Andrzej Wasilewski, Feng Xu, Xiaoguang Xu, and John Yorks
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2183–2208, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2183-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2183-2020, 2020
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The Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar (ACEPOL) field campaign is a resource for the next generation of spaceborne multi-angle polarimeter (MAP) and lidar missions. Conducted in the fall of 2017 from the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, four MAP instruments and two lidars were flown on the high-altitude ER-2 aircraft over a variety of scene types and ground assets. Data are freely available to the public and useful for algorithm development and testing.
Meng Gao, Peng-Wang Zhai, Bryan A. Franz, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Amir Ibrahim, Brian Cairns, Susanne E. Craig, Guangliang Fu, Otto Hasekamp, Yongxiang Hu, and P. Jeremy Werdell
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 3939–3956, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3939-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3939-2020, 2020
Daniel J. Miller, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Jens Redemann, Brian Cairns, Mikhail Alexandrov, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, and Andrzej Wasilewski
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 3447–3470, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3447-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3447-2020, 2020
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A neural network (NN) is developed and used to retrieve cloud microphysical properties from multiangular and multispectral polarimetric remote sensing observations. The NN is applied to research scanning polarimeter (RSP) observations obtained during the ORACLES field campaign and compared to other co-located remote sensing retrievals of cloud effective radius and optical thickness. A NN approach can advance more complex iterative search retrieval algorithms by providing a quick initial guess.
Alyson Douglas and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 6225–6241, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-6225-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-6225-2020, 2020
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Aerosols, or small, suspended droplets in the atmosphere, are released from anthropogenic activity and interact with warm clouds, leading to changes in the clouds' brightness and size. Our study evaluates how aerosols alter warm clouds and their ability to cool the Earth's surface. We find aerosols make clouds brighter and grow larger in the atmosphere; however, the cooling effect due to whiter, brighter clouds is 5 times the cooling due to an increased extent.
Mary Kacarab, K. Lee Thornhill, Amie Dobracki, Steven G. Howell, Joseph R. O'Brien, Steffen Freitag, Michael R. Poellot, Robert Wood, Paquita Zuidema, Jens Redemann, and Athanasios Nenes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 3029–3040, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3029-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3029-2020, 2020
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We find that extensive biomass burning aerosol plumes from southern Africa can profoundly influence clouds in the southeastern Atlantic. Concurrent variations in vertical velocity, however, are found to magnify the relationship between boundary layer aerosol and the cloud droplet number. Neglecting these covariances may strongly bias the sign and magnitude of aerosol impacts on the cloud droplet number.
Guangliang Fu, Otto Hasekamp, Jeroen Rietjens, Martijn Smit, Antonio Di Noia, Brian Cairns, Andrzej Wasilewski, David Diner, Felix Seidel, Feng Xu, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Meng Gao, Arlindo da Silva, Sharon Burton, Chris Hostetler, John Hair, and Richard Ferrare
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 553–573, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-553-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-553-2020, 2020
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In this paper, we present aerosol retrieval results from the ACEPOL (Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar) campaign, which was a joint initiative between NASA and SRON (the Netherlands Institute for Space Research). We perform aerosol retrievals from different multi-angle polarimeters employed during the ACEPOL campaign and evaluate them against ground-based AERONET measurements and High Spectral Resolution Lidar-2 (HSRL-2) measurements.
Manu Anna Thomas, Abhay Devasthale, Tristan L'Ecuyer, Shiyu Wang, Torben Koenigk, and Klaus Wyser
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 3759–3772, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3759-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3759-2019, 2019
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Snow cover significantly influences the surface albedo and radiation budget. Therefore, a realistic representation of snowfall in climate models is important. Here, using decade-long estimates of snowfall derived from the satellite sensor, four climate models are evaluated to assess how well they simulate snowfall in the Arctic. It is found that light and median snowfall is overestimated by the models in comparison to the satellite observations, and extreme snowfall is underestimated.
Kristina Pistone, Jens Redemann, Sarah Doherty, Paquita Zuidema, Sharon Burton, Brian Cairns, Sabrina Cochrane, Richard Ferrare, Connor Flynn, Steffen Freitag, Steven G. Howell, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Samuel LeBlanc, Xu Liu, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Snorre Stamnes, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Gerard Van Harten, and Feng Xu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 9181–9208, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9181-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9181-2019, 2019
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Understanding how smoke particles interact with sunlight is important in calculating their effects on climate, since some smoke is more scattering (cooling) and some is more absorbing (heating). Knowing this proportion is important for both satellite observations and climate models. We measured smoke properties in a recent aircraft-based field campaign off the west coast of Africa and present a comparison of these properties as measured using the six different, independent techniques available.
Meng Gao, Peng-Wang Zhai, Bryan A. Franz, Yongxiang Hu, Kirk Knobelspiesse, P. Jeremy Werdell, Amir Ibrahim, Brian Cairns, and Alison Chase
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 3921–3941, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3921-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3921-2019, 2019
Alyson Douglas and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 6251–6268, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6251-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6251-2019, 2019
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Aerosols are released by natural and human activities. When aerosols encounter clouds they interact in what is known as the indirect effect. Brighter clouds are expected due to the microphysical response; however, certain environments can trigger a modified response. Limits on the stability, humidity, and cloud thickness are applied regionally to investigate local cloud responses to aerosol, resulting in a range of indirect effects that would result in significant cooling or slight warming.
Joseph A. Finlon, Greg M. McFarquhar, Stephen W. Nesbitt, Robert M. Rauber, Hugh Morrison, Wei Wu, and Pengfei Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 3621–3643, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3621-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3621-2019, 2019
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A new approach describing the relationship between ice crystal mass (m) and dimension (D) is derived, characterizing it as a set of
equally realizableparameters based on the natural variability in cloud conditions observed by aircraft over the Great Plains. Results from this approach address shortcomings of microphysical parameterization schemes and remote sensing retrievals that employ a single m–D relation for a given ice species or environment.
Florentin Lemonnier, Jean-Baptiste Madeleine, Chantal Claud, Christophe Genthon, Claudio Durán-Alarcón, Cyril Palerme, Alexis Berne, Niels Souverijns, Nicole van Lipzig, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Tristan L'Ecuyer, and Norman Wood
The Cryosphere, 13, 943–954, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-943-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-943-2019, 2019
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Evaluation of the vertical precipitation rate profiles of CloudSat radar by comparison with two surface-based micro-rain radars (MRR) located at two antarctic stations gives a near-perfect correlation between both datasets, even though climatic and geographic conditions are different for the stations. A better understanding and reassessment of CloudSat uncertainties ranging from −13 % up to +22 % confirms the robustness of the CloudSat retrievals of snowfall over Antarctica.
Antonio Di Noia, Otto P. Hasekamp, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, and Zhibo Zhang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 1697–1716, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1697-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1697-2019, 2019
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We present a neural network algorithm for the retrieval of cloud physical properties from multi-angle polarimetric measurements. We have trained the algorithm on a large dataset of synthetic measurements and applied it to a year of POLDER-3 data. A comparison against MODIS cloud products reveals that our algorithm is capable of performing cloud property retrievals on a global scale and possibly improves the estimates of cloud effective radius over land with respect to existing POLDER-3 products.
Johannes Mülmenstädt, Odran Sourdeval, David S. Henderson, Tristan S. L'Ecuyer, Claudia Unglaub, Leonore Jungandreas, Christoph Böhm, Lynn M. Russell, and Johannes Quaas
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 10, 2279–2293, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-2279-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-2279-2018, 2018
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One of the key pieces of information about a cloud is how high its base is. Unlike cloud top, cloud base is hard to observe from a satellite perspective – the cloud blocks the view. But without using satellites, it is difficult to compile global datasets. Here we describe how we worked around the limitations of a cloud-detecting laser satellite to observe global cloud base heights. This dataset will expand our knowledge of the cloudy atmosphere and its interaction with the planetary surface.
Junshik Um, Greg M. McFarquhar, Jeffrey L. Stith, Chang Hoon Jung, Seoung Soo Lee, Ji Yi Lee, Younghwan Shin, Yun Gon Lee, Yiseok Isaac Yang, Seong Soo Yum, Byung-Gon Kim, Joo Wan Cha, and A-Reum Ko
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 16915–16930, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-16915-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-16915-2018, 2018
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During the 2012 Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry experiment upper anvils of two storms were sampled. The occurrence of well-defined pristine crystals was low in the anvils, while single frozen droplets and frozen droplet aggregates (FDAs) were the dominant habits. A new algorithm was developed to automatically identify the number, size, and relative position of element frozen droplets within FDAs. The morphological characteristics of FDAs were compared with those of black carbon aggregates.
Emma Järvinen, Olivier Jourdan, David Neubauer, Bin Yao, Chao Liu, Meinrat O. Andreae, Ulrike Lohmann, Manfred Wendisch, Greg M. McFarquhar, Thomas Leisner, and Martin Schnaiter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15767–15781, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15767-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15767-2018, 2018
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Using light diffraction it is possible to detect microscopic features within ice particles that have not yet been fully characterized. Here, this technique was applied in airborne measurements, where it was found that majority of atmospheric ice particles have features that significantly change the way ice particles interact with solar light. The microscopic features make ice-containing clouds more reflective than previously thought, which could have consequences for predicting our climate.
Heming Bai, Cheng Gong, Minghuai Wang, Zhibo Zhang, and Tristan L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 1763–1783, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-1763-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-1763-2018, 2018
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Precipitation susceptibility to aerosol perturbation plays a key role in understanding aerosol–cloud interactions and for constraining aerosol indirect effects. Here, multisensor aerosol and cloud products from A-Train satellites are analyzed to estimate precipitation susceptibility. Compared to precipitation intensity susceptibility, precipitation frequency susceptibility demonstrates relatively robust features across different retrieval products.
Antonio Di Noia, Otto P. Hasekamp, Lianghai Wu, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Brian Cairns, and John E. Yorks
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 4235–4252, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-4235-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-4235-2017, 2017
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In this paper an algorithm for the retrieval of aerosol properties from NASA Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) data is presented. An artificial neural network is used to produce a first estimate of the aerosol properties, which is then improved using an iterative retrieval scheme based on Phillips–Tikhonov regularization. Using the neural network retrievals as a first guess for the Phillips–Tikhonov improved the retrieval convergence, confirming results previously found on ground-based data.
Lars Norin, Abhay Devasthale, and Tristan S. L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 3249–3263, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3249-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3249-2017, 2017
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For a high-latitude country like Sweden snowfall is an important contributor to the regional water cycle. For Sweden, large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, or weather states, are important for precipitation variability. In this work we investigate the sensitivity of snowfall to weather states over Sweden to eight selected weather states. The analysis is based on measurements from ground-based radar, satellite observations, spatially interpolated in situ observations, and reanalysis data.
Steven J. Cooper, Norman B. Wood, and Tristan S. L'Ecuyer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 2557–2571, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2557-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2557-2017, 2017
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Estimates of snowfall rate as derived from radar observations can suffer large uncertainties due to great natural variability in snowflake microphysical properties. We used in situ observations of particle size, shape, and fall speed to refine radar-based estimates of snowfall for five snow events at the ARM Barrow Climate Research Facility. Estimated snowfall amounts agreed well with nearby snow gauge observations and demonstrated significant sensitivity to both particle shape and fall speed.
Kenneth Sinclair, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Brian Cairns, John Yorks, Andrzej Wasilewski, and Matthew McGill
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 2361–2375, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2361-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2361-2017, 2017
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We present a multi-angular contrast approach to retrieve cloud top height (CTH) using photogrammetry. We demonstrate the method’s ability to retrieve heights of multiple cloud layers within single footprints, using the multiple views available for each footprint. This paper provides an in-depth description and performance analysis of the CTH retrieval technique and the retrieved cloud heights are evaluated using collocated data from the Cloud Physics Lidar.
Ann M. Fridlind, Xiaowen Li, Di Wu, Marcus van Lier-Walqui, Andrew S. Ackerman, Wei-Kuo Tao, Greg M. McFarquhar, Wei Wu, Xiquan Dong, Jingyu Wang, Alexander Ryzhkov, Pengfei Zhang, Michael R. Poellot, Andrea Neumann, and Jason M. Tomlinson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 5947–5972, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5947-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5947-2017, 2017
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Understanding observed storm microphysics via computer simulation requires measurements of aerosol on which most hydrometeors form. We prepare aerosol input data for six storms observed over Oklahoma. We demonstrate their use in simulations of a case with widespread ice outflow well sampled by aircraft. Simulations predict too few ice crystals that are too large. We speculate that microphysics found in tropical storms occurred here, likely associated with poorly understood ice multiplication.
Ann M. Fridlind, Rachel Atlas, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Junshik Um, Greg M. McFarquhar, Andrew S. Ackerman, Elisabeth J. Moyer, and R. Paul Lawson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 7251–7283, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7251-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7251-2016, 2016
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Images of crystals within mid-latitude cirrus clouds are used to derive consistent ice physical and optical properties for a detailed cloud microphysics model, including size-dependent mass, projected area, and fall speed. Based on habits found, properties are derived for bullet rosettes, their aggregates, and crystals with irregular shapes. Derived bullet rosette fall speeds are substantially greater than reported in past studies, owing to differences in mass, area, or diameter representation.
Andrew M. Dzambo, David D. Turner, and Eli J. Mlawer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 1613–1626, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-1613-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-1613-2016, 2016
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Radiosondes are used to characterize the humidity in the middle and upper troposphere, but suffer from a solar radiation induced dry bias. This work investigates the accuracy of two published correction algorithms using comparisons with other instruments.
Joel McCorkel, Brian Cairns, and Andrzej Wasilewski
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 955–962, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-955-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-955-2016, 2016
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The transfer and maintenance of international radiometric standards to satellite remote-sensing instruments is a labor-intensive and costly one. The goal is to provide specific examples for calibration implementation for a potential instrument mission and, with this, advance debate on the roles that the various satellite calibration techniques play in providing the best radiometric standards for Earth-observing sensors.
L. M. Zamora, R. A. Kahn, M. J. Cubison, G. S. Diskin, J. L. Jimenez, Y. Kondo, G. M. McFarquhar, A. Nenes, K. L. Thornhill, A. Wisthaler, A. Zelenyuk, and L. D. Ziemba
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 715–738, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-715-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-715-2016, 2016
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Based on extensive aircraft campaigns, we quantify how biomass burning smoke affects subarctic and Arctic liquid cloud microphysical properties. Enhanced cloud albedo may decrease short-wave radiative flux by between 2 and 4 Wm2 or more in some subarctic conditions. Smoke halved average cloud droplet diameter. In one case study, it also appeared to limit droplet formation. Numerous Arctic background Aitken particles can also interact with combustion particles, perhaps affecting their properties.
M. Ottaviani, B. van Diedenhoven, and B. Cairns
The Cryosphere, 9, 1933–1942, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1933-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1933-2015, 2015
L. Wu, O. Hasekamp, B. van Diedenhoven, and B. Cairns
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 2625–2638, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2625-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2625-2015, 2015
J. Um, G. M. McFarquhar, Y. P. Hong, S.-S. Lee, C. H. Jung, R. P. Lawson, and Q. Mo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 3933–3956, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-3933-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-3933-2015, 2015
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Dimensions of ice crystals increased with an increase in temperature and the L-W relationships of crystals with a given L depended heavily on temperature, whereas the aspect ratio depended only weakly on temperature. The relative frequency of occurrence of plates was much larger in anvil clouds compared to that of columnar crystals (i.e., columns and bullet rosettes), whereas the relative occurrence frequency of columnar crystals was much larger in non-anvil clouds.
K. Knobelspiesse, B. van Diedenhoven, A. Marshak, S. Dunagan, B. Holben, and I. Slutsker
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1537–1554, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1537-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1537-2015, 2015
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We test if ground-based sun photometers/radiometers like those in the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) can use the polarization sensitivity of some instruments for improved cloud optical property retrieval. Our radiative transfer simulations show that the direction of linear polarization indicates cloud thermodynamic phase for optically thin clouds. In practice, data analysis shows a weak response with AERONET instruments, most likely due to noise and orientation/calibration ambiguity.
B. van Diedenhoven, B. Cairns, A. M. Fridlind, A. S. Ackerman, and T. J. Garrett
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 3185–3203, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3185-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3185-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Subject: Clouds and Precipitation | Research Activity: Field Measurements | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Moisture budget estimates derived from airborne observations in an Arctic atmospheric river during its dissipation
Aerosol–cloud interactions in cirrus clouds based on global-scale airborne observations and machine learning models
In-cloud characteristics observed in northeastern and midwestern US non-orographic winter storms with implications for ice particle mass growth and residence time
Vertical profiles of liquid water content in fog layers during the SOFOG3D experiment
Quantified ice-nucleating ability of AgI-containing seeding particles in natural clouds
Measurement report: A survey of meteorological and cloud properties during ACTIVATE’s postfrontal flights and their suitability for Lagrangian case studies
Quantifying the impact of solar zenith angle, cloud optical thickness, and surface albedo on the solar radiative effect of Arctic low-level clouds over open ocean and sea ice
Characterization of fog microphysics and their relationships with visibility at a mountain site in China
Quantifying ice crystal growth rates in natural clouds from glaciogenic cloud seeding experiments
Measurement report: Microphysical and optical characteristic of radiation fog – a study using in-situ, remote sensing, and balloon techniques
Hunting for gravity waves in non-orographic winter storms using 3+ years of regional surface air pressure network and radar observations
Theoretical framework for measuring cloud effective supersaturation fluctuations with an advanced optical system
Airborne observations of cloud properties during their evolution from organized streets to isotropic cloud structures along an Arctic cold air outbreak
Synthesis of surface snowfall rates and radar-observed storm structures in 10+ years of Northeast US winter storms
Investigating the role of typhoon-induced waves and stratospheric hydration in the formation of tropopause cirrus clouds observed during the 2017 Asian monsoon
How does riming influence the observed spatial variability of ice water in mixed-phase clouds?
Microphysical view of the development and ice production of mid-latitude stratiform clouds with embedded convection during an extratropical cyclone
Clouds and precipitation in the initial phase of marine cold-air outbreaks as observed by airborne remote sensing
Light scattering and microphysical properties of atmospheric bullet rosette ice crystals
Estimating the snow density using collocated Parsivel and Micro-Rain Radar measurements: a preliminary study from ICE-POP 2017/2018
Technical note: On the ice microphysics of isolated thunderstorms and non-thunderstorms in southern China – a radar polarimetric perspective
Distinctive aerosol–cloud–precipitation interactions in marine boundary layer clouds from the ACE-ENA and SOCRATES aircraft field campaigns
Drivers of droplet formation in east Mediterranean orographic clouds
Observed impacts of aerosol concentration on maritime tropical convection within constrained environments using airborne radiometer, radar, lidar, and dropsondes
Causal Analysis of Aerosol Impacts on Isolated Deep Convection: Findings from TRACER
Observability of moisture transport divergence in Arctic atmospheric rivers by dropsondes
Elucidating the boundary layer turbulence dissipation rate using high-resolution measurements from a radar wind profiler network over the Tibetan Plateau
Environmental controls on isolated convection during the Amazonian wet season
Isotopic composition of convective rainfall in the inland tropics of Brazil
Measurement report: Cloud and environmental properties associated with aggregated shallow marine cumulus and cumulus congestus
Lifecycle of updrafts and mass flux in isolated deep convection over the Amazon rainforest: insights from cell tracking
Thermodynamic and cloud evolution in a cold-air outbreak during HALO-(AC)3: quasi-Lagrangian observations compared to the ERA5 and CARRA reanalyses
Powering aircraft with 100 % sustainable aviation fuel reduces ice crystals in contrails
Supercooled liquid water clouds observed over Dome C, Antarctica: temperature sensitivity and cloud radiative forcing
Role of thermodynamic and turbulence processes on the fog life cycle during SOFOG3D experiment
Characterizing the near-global cloud vertical structures over land using high-resolution radiosonde measurements
Differences in microphysical properties of cirrus at high and mid-latitudes
Sub-cloud rain evaporation in the North Atlantic winter trade winds derived by pairing isotopic data with a bin-resolved microphysical model
Overview and statistical analysis of boundary layer clouds and precipitation over the western North Atlantic Ocean
A set of methods to evaluate the below-cloud evaporation effect on local precipitation isotopic composition: a case study for Xi'an, China
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island
Pollution slightly enhances atmospheric cooling by low-level clouds in tropical West Africa
Investigating an indirect aviation effect on mid-latitude cirrus clouds – linking lidar-derived optical properties to in situ measurements
Investigating the vertical extent and short-wave radiative effects of the ice phase in Arctic summertime low-level clouds
Microphysical and thermodynamic phase analyses of Arctic low-level clouds measured above the sea ice and the open ocean in spring and summer
Aircraft observations of gravity wave activity and turbulence in the tropical tropopause layer: prevalence, influence on cirrus clouds, and comparison with global storm-resolving models
Influence of air mass origin on microphysical properties of low-level clouds in a subarctic environment
Sensitivity of convectively driven tropical tropopause cirrus properties to ice habits in high-resolution simulations
Upper-tropospheric slightly ice-subsaturated regions: frequency of occurrence and statistical evidence for the appearance of contrail cirrus
Examination of aerosol indirect effects during cirrus cloud evolution
Henning Dorff, Florian Ewald, Heike Konow, Mario Mech, Davide Ori, Vera Schemann, Andreas Walbröl, Manfred Wendisch, and Felix Ament
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 8329–8354, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-8329-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-8329-2025, 2025
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Using observations of an Arctic atmospheric river (AR) from a long-range research aircraft, we analyse how moisture transported into the Arctic by the AR is transformed and how it interacts with the Arctic environment. The moisture transport divergence is the main driver of local moisture change over time. Surface precipitation and evaporation are rather weak when averaged over extended AR sectors, although considerable heterogeneity of precipitation within the AR is observed.
Derek Ngo, Minghui Diao, Ryan J. Patnaude, Sarah Woods, and Glenn Diskin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 7007–7036, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7007-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7007-2025, 2025
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Key controlling factors of cirrus clouds were individually quantified using machine learning models based on global-scale in situ observations from 12 campaigns at 67° S–87° N. Relative humidity shows much larger effects on cirrus occurrences and ice water content (IWC) fluctuations than vertical velocity. Aerosol–cloud interactions are seen for both large and small aerosols, with higher IWC and ice crystal number concentration under higher aerosol concentrations. Large aerosols are more impactful than small aerosols.
Luke R. Allen, Sandra E. Yuter, Declan M. Crowe, Matthew A. Miller, and K. Lee Thornhill
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 6679–6701, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6679-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6679-2025, 2025
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We analyzed in-cloud characteristics using in situ measurements from 42 research flights across two field campaigns into non-orographic, non-lake-effect winter storms. Much of the storm volume contains weak vertical motions (a few centimeters per second), and most updrafts ≥ 0.5 m s-1 are small (< 1 km). Within 2 km of cloud radar echo top, stronger vertical motions and conditions for ice particle growth are more common. Overturning air motions near cloud top appear important for the production of snow particles.
Théophane Costabloz, Frédéric Burnet, Christine Lac, Pauline Martinet, Julien Delanoë, Susana Jorquera, and Maroua Fathalli
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 6539–6573, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6539-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6539-2025, 2025
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This study documents vertical profiles of liquid water content (LWC) in fogs from in situ measurements collected during the SOFOG3D field campaign in 2019–2020. The analysis of 140 vertical profiles reveals a reverse trend in LWC, maximum values at ground decreasing with height, during stable conditions in optically thin fogs, evolving towards quasi-adiabatic characteristics when fogs become thick. These results offer new perspectives for better constraining fog numerical simulations.
Anna J. Miller, Christopher Fuchs, Fabiola Ramelli, Huiying Zhang, Nadja Omanovic, Robert Spirig, Claudia Marcolli, Zamin A. Kanji, Ulrike Lohmann, and Jan Henneberger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5387–5407, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5387-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5387-2025, 2025
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We analyzed the ability of silver iodide particles (a commonly used cloud-seeding agent) to form ice crystals in naturally occurring liquid clouds at −5 to −8 °C and found that only ≈ 0.1 %−1 % of particles nucleate ice, with a negative dependence on temperature. By contextualizing our results with previous laboratory studies, we help to bridge the gap between laboratory and field experiments, which also helps to inform future cloud-seeding projects.
Florian Tornow, Ann Fridlind, George Tselioudis, Brian Cairns, Andrew Ackerman, Seethala Chellappan, David Painemal, Paquita Zuidema, Christiane Voigt, Simon Kirschler, and Armin Sorooshian
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5053–5074, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5053-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5053-2025, 2025
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The recent NASA campaign ACTIVATE (Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment) performed 71 tandem flights in mid-latitude marine cold-air outbreaks off the US eastern seaboard. We provide meteorological and cloud transition stage context, allowing us to identify days that are most suitable for Lagrangian modeling and analysis. Surveyed cloud properties show signatures of cloud microphysical processes, such as cloud-top entrainment and secondary ice formation.
Sebastian Becker, André Ehrlich, Michael Schäfer, and Manfred Wendisch
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1210, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1210, 2025
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Clouds interact with solar radiation and can alter the surface temperature. The strength of this cloud impact is driven by cloud properties as well as solar elevation and surface reflection. Since these dependences are poorly represented in climate models, cloud, surface, and radiation observations are used to quantify the contributions of the drivers in the Arctic. It is shown that the weaker surface reflection dominates the stronger cooling effect of clouds over open ocean compared to sea ice.
Quan Liu, Xiaojing Shen, Junying Sun, Yangmei Zhang, Bing Qi, Qianli Ma, Lujie Han, Honghui Xu, Xinyao Hu, Jiayuan Lu, Shuo Liu, Aoyuan Yu, Linlin Liang, Qian Gao, Hong Wang, Huizheng Che, and Xiaoye Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 3253–3267, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3253-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3253-2025, 2025
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Through simultaneous measurements of aerosol particles and fog droplets, the evolution of droplets size distribution during the eight observed fog events was investigated. The results showed that the concentration and size distribution of pre-fog aerosol had significant impacts on fog microphysical characteristics. The extinction of fog interstitial particles played an important role in visibility degradation for light fogs, especially in polluted regions.
Christopher Fuchs, Fabiola Ramelli, Anna J. Miller, Nadja Omanovic, Robert Spirig, Huiying Zhang, Patric Seifert, Kevin Ohneiser, Ulrike Lohmann, and Jan Henneberger
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-688, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-688, 2025
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We quantify diffusional ice crystal growth in natural clouds using cloud seeding experiments. We report growth rates for 14 experiments between -5.1°C and -8.3°C and observe strong variations depending on the cloud characteristics. Comparing our growth rates to laboratory data, we found similar temperature-dependent trends, but the laboratory rates are higher. This data fills the gap in quantitative in situ observation of ice crystal growth, helping to validate models and laboratory experiments.
Katarzyna Nurowska, Przemysław Makuch, and Krzysztof M. Markowicz
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4074, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4074, 2025
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This study explores the properties of radiation fog in Southeastern Poland, focusing on how droplets and water content vary with height. Data from three September 2023 fog events show that larger droplets form near the ground, while fog dissipates from both top and bottom. Key findings include average droplet sizes, water content, and how fog impacts radiation. The results improve understanding of fog behavior and its environmental effects.
Luke R. Allen, Sandra E. Yuter, Matthew A. Miller, and Laura M. Tomkins
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1765–1790, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1765-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1765-2025, 2025
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Atmospheric gravity waves (GWs) are air oscillations in which buoyancy is the restoring force, and they may enhance precipitation under certain conditions. We used 3+ seasons of pressure data to identify GWs with wavelengths ≤ 170 km in the Toronto and New York metropolitan areas in the context of snow storms. We found only six GW events during snow storms, suggesting that GWs on those scales are uncommon at the two locations during snow storms and, thus, do not often enhance snowfall.
Ye Kuang, Jiangchuan Tao, Hanbing Xu, Li Liu, Pengfei Liu, Wanyun Xu, Weiqi Xu, Yele Sun, and Chunsheng Zhao
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1163–1174, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1163-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1163-2025, 2025
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This study presents a novel optical framework to measure supersaturation, a fundamental parameter in cloud physics, by observing the scattering properties of particles that have or have not grown into cloud droplets. The technique offers high-resolution measurements, capturing essential fluctuations in supersaturation necessary for understanding cloud physics.
Marcus Klingebiel, André Ehrlich, Micha Gryschka, Nils Risse, Nina Maherndl, Imke Schirmacher, Sophie Rosenburg, Sabine Hörnig, Manuel Moser, Evelyn Jäkel, Michael Schäfer, Hartwig Deneke, Mario Mech, Christiane Voigt, and Manfred Wendisch
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-201, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-201, 2025
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Our study is using aircraft measurements from the HALO-(𝒜𝒞)³ campaign to investigate the transition from organized Arctic cloud street structures to more scattered cloud shapes. We show that lower wind speeds cause this transition. In addition we look at the changes of the cloud coverage, the height of the clouds, the cloud particles and the radiative properties.
Laura M. Tomkins, Sandra E. Yuter, Matthew A. Miller, Mariko Oue, and Charles N. Helms
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6, 2025
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This study investigates how radar-detected snow bands relate to snowfall rates during winter storms in the northeastern U.S. Using over a decade of data, we found that snow bands are not consistently linked to heavy snowfall at the surface, as snow particles are often dispersed by wind before reaching the ground. These findings highlight limitations of using radar reflectivity for predicting snow rates and suggest focusing on radar echo duration to better understand snowfall patterns.
Amit Kumar Pandit, Jean-Paul Vernier, Thomas Duncan Fairlie, Kristopher M. Bedka, Melody A. Avery, Harish Gadhavi, Madineni Venkat Ratnam, Sanjeev Dwivedi, Kasimahanthi Amar Jyothi, Frank G. Wienhold, Holger Vömel, Hongyu Liu, Bo Zhang, Buduru Suneel Kumar, Tra Dinh, and Achuthan Jayaraman
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14209–14238, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14209-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14209-2024, 2024
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This study investigates the formation mechanism of a tropopause cirrus cloud layer observed at extremely cold temperatures over Hyderabad in India during the 2017 Asian summer monsoon using balloon-borne sensors. Ice crystals smaller than 50 µm were found in this optically thin cirrus cloud layer. Combined analysis of back trajectories, satellite, and model data revealed that the formation of this layer was influenced by waves and stratospheric hydration induced by typhoon Hato.
Nina Maherndl, Manuel Moser, Imke Schirmacher, Aaron Bansemer, Johannes Lucke, Christiane Voigt, and Maximilian Maahn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13935–13960, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13935-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13935-2024, 2024
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It is not clear why ice crystals in clouds occur in clusters. Here, airborne measurements of clouds in mid-latitudes and high latitudes are used to study the spatial variability of ice. Further, we investigate the influence of riming, which occurs when liquid droplets freeze onto ice crystals. We find that riming enhances the occurrence of ice clusters. In the Arctic, riming leads to ice clustering at spatial scales of 3–5 km. This is due to updrafts and not higher amounts of liquid water.
Yuanmou Du, Dantong Liu, Delong Zhao, Mengyu Huang, Ping Tian, Dian Wen, Wei Xiao, Wei Zhou, Hui He, Baiwan Pan, Dongfei Zuo, Xiange Liu, Yingying Jing, Rong Zhang, Jiujiang Sheng, Fei Wang, Yu Huang, Yunbo Chen, and Deping Ding
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13429–13444, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13429-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13429-2024, 2024
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By conducting in situ measurements, we investigated ice production processes in stratiform clouds with embedded convection over the North China Plain. The results show that the ice number concentration is strongly related to the distance to the cloud top, and the level with a larger distance to the cloud top has more graupel falling from upper levels, which promotes collision and coalescence between graupel and droplets and enhances secondary ice production.
Imke Schirmacher, Sabrina Schnitt, Marcus Klingebiel, Nina Maherndl, Benjamin Kirbus, André Ehrlich, Mario Mech, and Susanne Crewell
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12823–12842, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12823-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12823-2024, 2024
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During Arctic marine cold-air outbreaks, cold air flows from sea ice over open water. Roll circulations evolve, forming cloud streets. We investigate the initial circulation and cloud development using high-resolution airborne measurements. We compute the distance an air mass traveled over water (fetch) from back trajectories. Cloud streets form at 15 km fetch, cloud cover strongly increases at around 20 km, and precipitation forms at around 30 km.
Shawn Wendell Wagner, Martin Schnaiter, Guanglang Xu, Franziska Nehlert, and Emma Järvinen
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3316, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3316, 2024
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Understanding the interaction between cirrus clouds and solar radiation is critical for modeling the Earth’s climate. A common crystal type found in cirrus clouds is the bullet rosette. Here, atmospheric bullet rosettes measured from jet aircraft are analyzed for their morphological and radiative properties. Atmospheric bullet rosettes are found to be more morphologically complex than previously assumed. This complexity has a significant impact on their radiative properties.
Wei-Yu Chang, Yung-Chuan Yang, Chen-Yu Hung, Kwonil Kim, Gyuwon Lee, and Ali Tokay
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11955–11979, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11955-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11955-2024, 2024
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Snow density is derived by collocated Micro-Rain Radar (MRR) and Parsivel (ICE-POP 2017/2018). We apply the particle size distribution from Parsivel to a T-matrix backscattering simulation and compare with ZHH from MRR. Bulk density and bulk water fractions are derived from comparing simulated and calculated ZHH. Retrieved bulk density is validated by comparing snowfall rate measurements from Pluvio and the Precipitation Imaging Package. Snowfall rate consistency confirms the algorithm.
Chuanhong Zhao, Yijun Zhang, Dong Zheng, Haoran Li, Sai Du, Xueyan Peng, Xiantong Liu, Pengguo Zhao, Jiafeng Zheng, and Juan Shi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11637–11651, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11637-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11637-2024, 2024
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Understanding lightning activity is important for meteorology and atmospheric chemistry. However, the occurrence of lightning activity in clouds is uncertain. In this study, we quantified the difference between isolated thunderstorms and non-thunderstorms. We showed that lightning activity was more likely to occur with more graupel volume and/or riming. A deeper ZDR column was associated with lightning occurrence. This information can aid in a deeper understanding of lighting physics.
Xiaojian Zheng, Xiquan Dong, Baike Xi, Timothy Logan, and Yuan Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10323–10347, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10323-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10323-2024, 2024
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The marine boundary layer aerosol–cloud interactions (ACIs) are examined using in situ measurements from two aircraft campaigns over the eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA) and Southern Ocean (SOCRATES). The SOCRATES clouds have more and smaller cloud droplets. The ACE-ENA clouds exhibit stronger drizzle formation and growth. Results found distinctive aerosol–cloud interactions for two campaigns. The drizzle processes significantly alter sub-cloud aerosol budgets and impact the ACI assessments.
Romanos Foskinis, Ghislain Motos, Maria I. Gini, Olga Zografou, Kunfeng Gao, Stergios Vratolis, Konstantinos Granakis, Ville Vakkari, Kalliopi Violaki, Andreas Aktypis, Christos Kaltsonoudis, Zongbo Shi, Mika Komppula, Spyros N. Pandis, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, Alexandros Papayannis, and Athanasios Nenes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9827–9842, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9827-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9827-2024, 2024
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Analysis of modeling, in situ, and remote sensing measurements reveals the microphysical state of orographic clouds and their response to aerosol from the boundary layer and free troposphere. We show that cloud response to aerosol is robust, as predicted supersaturation and cloud droplet number levels agree with those determined from in-cloud measurements. The ability to determine if clouds are velocity- or aerosol-limited allows for novel model constraints and remote sensing products.
Corey G. Amiot, Timothy J. Lang, Susan C. van den Heever, Richard A. Ferrare, Ousmane O. Sy, Lawrence D. Carey, Sundar A. Christopher, John R. Mecikalski, Sean W. Freeman, George Alexander Sokolowsky, Chris A. Hostetler, and Simone Tanelli
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2384, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2384, 2024
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Decoupling aerosol and environmental impacts on convection is challenging. Using airborne data, we correlated microwave-frequency convective metrics with aerosol concentrations in several different environments. Medium-to-high aerosol concentrations were often strongly and positively correlated with convective intensity and frequency, especially in favorable environments based on temperature lapse rates and K-Index. Storm environment is important to consider when evaluating aerosol effects.
Dié Wang, Roni Kobrosly, Tao Zhang, Tamanna Subba, Susan van den Heever, Siddhant Gupta, and Michael Jensen
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2436, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2436, 2024
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We use a new method to understand how tiny particles in the air, called aerosols, affect rain clouds in the Houston-Galveston area. Aerosols generally do not make these clouds grow much taller, with an average height increase of about 1 km under certain conditions. However, their effects on rainfall strength and cloud expansion are less certain. Clouds influenced by sea breezes show a stronger aerosol impact, possibly due to unaccounted factors like vertical winds in near-surface layers.
Henning Dorff, Heike Konow, Vera Schemann, and Felix Ament
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8771–8795, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8771-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8771-2024, 2024
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Using synthetic dropsondes, we assess how discrete spatial sampling and temporal evolution during flight affect the accuracy of real sonde-based moisture transport divergence in Arctic atmospheric rivers (ARs). Non-instantaneous sampling during temporal AR evolution deteriorates the divergence values more than spatial undersampling. Moisture advection is the dominating factor but most sensitive to the sampling method. We suggest a minimum of seven sondes to resolve the AR divergence components.
Deli Meng, Jianping Guo, Xiaoran Guo, Yinjun Wang, Ning Li, Yuping Sun, Zhen Zhang, Na Tang, Haoran Li, Fan Zhang, Bing Tong, Hui Xu, and Tianmeng Chen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8703–8720, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8703-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8703-2024, 2024
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The turbulence in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) remains unclear. Here we elucidate the vertical profile of and temporal variation in the turbulence dissipation rate in the PBL over the TP based on a radar wind profiler (RWP) network. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the turbulence profile over the whole TP has been revealed. Furthermore, the possible mechanisms of clouds acting on the PBL turbulence structure are investigated.
Leandro Alex Moreira Viscardi, Giuseppe Torri, David K. Adams, and Henrique de Melo Jorge Barbosa
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8529–8548, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8529-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8529-2024, 2024
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We evaluate the environmental conditions that control how clouds grow from fair weather cumulus into severe thunderstorms during the Amazonian wet season. Days with rain clouds begin with more moisture in the air and have strong convergence in the afternoon, while precipitation intensity increases with large-scale vertical velocity, moisture, and low-level wind. These results contribute to understanding how clouds form over the rainforest.
Vinicius dos Santos, Didier Gastmans, Ana María Durán-Quesada, Ricardo Sánchez-Murillo, Kazimierz Rozanski, Oliver Kracht, and Demilson de Assis Quintão
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6663–6680, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6663-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6663-2024, 2024
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We present novel findings on convective rainfall, summer rain in the late afternoon, by coupling water stable isotopes, micro rain radar, and satellite data. We found the tallest clouds in the afternoon and much smaller clouds at night, resulting in differences in day–night ratios in water stable isotopes. We sampled rain and meteorological variables every 5–10 min, allowing us to evaluate the development of convective rainfall, contributing to knowledge of rainfall related to extreme events.
Ewan Crosbie, Luke D. Ziemba, Michael A. Shook, Taylor Shingler, Johnathan W. Hair, Armin Sorooshian, Richard A. Ferrare, Brian Cairns, Yonghoon Choi, Joshua DiGangi, Glenn S. Diskin, Chris Hostetler, Simon Kirschler, Richard H. Moore, David Painemal, Claire Robinson, Shane T. Seaman, K. Lee Thornhill, Christiane Voigt, and Edward Winstead
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6123–6152, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6123-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6123-2024, 2024
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Marine clouds are found to clump together in regions or lines, readily discernible from satellite images of the ocean. While clustering is also a feature of deep storm clouds, we focus on smaller cloud systems associated with fair weather and brief localized showers. Two aircraft sampled the region around these shallow systems: one incorporated measurements taken within, adjacent to, and below the clouds, while the other provided a survey from above using remote sensing techniques.
Siddhant Gupta, Dié Wang, Scott E. Giangrande, Thiago S. Biscaro, and Michael P. Jensen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4487–4510, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4487-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4487-2024, 2024
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We examine the lifecycle of isolated deep convective clouds (DCCs) in the Amazon rainforest. Weather radar echoes from the DCCs are tracked to evaluate their lifecycle. The DCC size and intensity increase, reach a peak, and then decrease over the DCC lifetime. Vertical profiles of air motion and mass transport from different seasons are examined to understand the transport of energy and momentum within DCC cores and to address the deficiencies in simulating DCCs using weather and climate models.
Benjamin Kirbus, Imke Schirmacher, Marcus Klingebiel, Michael Schäfer, André Ehrlich, Nils Slättberg, Johannes Lucke, Manuel Moser, Hanno Müller, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3883–3904, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3883-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3883-2024, 2024
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A research aircraft is used to track the changes in air temperature, moisture, and cloud properties for air that moves from cold Arctic sea ice onto warmer oceanic waters. The measurements are compared to two reanalysis models named ERA5 and CARRA. The biggest differences are found for air temperature over the sea ice and moisture over the ocean. CARRA data are more accurate than ERA5 because they better simulate the sea ice, the transition from sea ice to open ocean, and the forming clouds.
Raphael Satoru Märkl, Christiane Voigt, Daniel Sauer, Rebecca Katharina Dischl, Stefan Kaufmann, Theresa Harlaß, Valerian Hahn, Anke Roiger, Cornelius Weiß-Rehm, Ulrike Burkhardt, Ulrich Schumann, Andreas Marsing, Monika Scheibe, Andreas Dörnbrack, Charles Renard, Maxime Gauthier, Peter Swann, Paul Madden, Darren Luff, Reetu Sallinen, Tobias Schripp, and Patrick Le Clercq
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3813–3837, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3813-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3813-2024, 2024
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In situ measurements of contrails from a large passenger aircraft burning 100 % sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) show a 56 % reduction in contrail ice crystal numbers compared to conventional Jet A-1. Results from a climate model initialized with the observations suggest a significant decrease in radiative forcing from contrails. Our study confirms that future increased use of low aromatic SAF can reduce the climate impact from aviation.
Philippe Ricaud, Massimo Del Guasta, Angelo Lupi, Romain Roehrig, Eric Bazile, Pierre Durand, Jean-Luc Attié, Alessia Nicosia, and Paolo Grigioni
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 613–630, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-613-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-613-2024, 2024
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Clouds affect the Earth's climate in ways that depend on the type of cloud (solid/liquid water). From observations at Concordia (Antarctica), we show that in supercooled liquid water (liquid water for temperatures below 0°C) clouds (SLWCs), temperature and SLWC radiative forcing increase with liquid water (up to 70 W m−2). We extrapolated that the maximum SLWC radiative forcing can reach 40 W m−2 over the Antarctic Peninsula, highlighting the importance of SLWCs for global climate prediction.
Cheikh Dione, Martial Haeffelin, Frédéric Burnet, Christine Lac, Guylaine Canut, Julien Delanoë, Jean-Charles Dupont, Susana Jorquera, Pauline Martinet, Jean-François Ribaud, and Felipe Toledo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15711–15731, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15711-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15711-2023, 2023
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This paper documents the role of thermodynamics and turbulence in the fog life cycle over southwestern France. It is based on a unique dataset collected during the SOFOG3D field campaign in autumn and winter 2019–2020. The paper gives a threshold for turbulence driving the different phases of the fog life cycle and the role of advection in the night-time dissipation of fog. The results can be operationalised to nowcast fog and improve short-range forecasts in numerical weather prediction models.
Hui Xu, Jianping Guo, Bing Tong, Jinqiang Zhang, Tianmeng Chen, Xiaoran Guo, Jian Zhang, and Wenqing Chen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15011–15038, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15011-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15011-2023, 2023
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The radiative effect of cloud remains one of the largest uncertain factors in climate change, largely due to the lack of cloud vertical structure (CVS) observations. The study presents the first near-global CVS climatology using high-vertical-resolution soundings. Single-layer cloud mainly occurs over arid regions. As the number of cloud layers increases, clouds tend to have lower bases and thinner layer thicknesses. The occurrence frequency of cloud exhibits a pronounced seasonal diurnal cycle.
Elena De La Torre Castro, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Armin Afchine, Volker Grewe, Valerian Hahn, Simon Kirschler, Martina Krämer, Johannes Lucke, Nicole Spelten, Heini Wernli, Martin Zöger, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13167–13189, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13167-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13167-2023, 2023
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In this study, we show the differences in the microphysical properties between high-latitude (HL) cirrus and mid-latitude (ML) cirrus over the Arctic, North Atlantic, and central Europe during summer. The in situ measurements are combined with backward trajectories to investigate the influence of the region on cloud formation. We show that HL cirrus are characterized by a lower concentration of larger ice crystals when compared to ML cirrus.
Mampi Sarkar, Adriana Bailey, Peter Blossey, Simon P. de Szoeke, David Noone, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Mason D. Leandro, and Patrick Y. Chuang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 12671–12690, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12671-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12671-2023, 2023
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We study rain evaporation characteristics below shallow cumulus clouds over the North Atlantic Ocean by pairing isotope observations with a microphysical model. The modeled fraction of rain mass that evaporates below the cloud strongly depends on the raindrop size and distribution width. Moreover, the higher the rain mass fraction evaporated, the greater the change in deuterium excess. In this way, rain evaporation could be studied independently using only isotope and microphysical observations.
Simon Kirschler, Christiane Voigt, Bruce E. Anderson, Gao Chen, Ewan C. Crosbie, Richard A. Ferrare, Valerian Hahn, Johnathan W. Hair, Stefan Kaufmann, Richard H. Moore, David Painemal, Claire E. Robinson, Kevin J. Sanchez, Amy J. Scarino, Taylor J. Shingler, Michael A. Shook, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Edward L. Winstead, Luke D. Ziemba, and Armin Sorooshian
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 10731–10750, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-10731-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-10731-2023, 2023
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In this study we present an overview of liquid and mixed-phase clouds and precipitation in the marine boundary layer over the western North Atlantic Ocean. We compare microphysical properties of pure liquid clouds to mixed-phase clouds and show that the initiation of the ice phase in mixed-phase clouds promotes precipitation. The observational data presented in this study are well suited for investigating the processes that give rise to liquid and mixed-phase clouds, ice, and precipitation.
Meng Xing, Weiguo Liu, Jing Hu, and Zheng Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 9123–9136, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9123-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9123-2023, 2023
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The below-cloud evaporation effect (BCE) on precipitation largely impacts the final isotopic composition. However, determining the BCE effect remains poorly constrained. Our work used a ΔdΔδ diagram to differentiate the below-cloud processes. Moreover, by comparing two different computing methods, we considered that both methods are suitable for evaluation the BCE, except for snowfall events. Overall, our work compiled a set of effective methods to evaluate the BCE effect.
McKenna W. Stanford, Ann M. Fridlind, Israel Silber, Andrew S. Ackerman, Greg Cesana, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Alain Protat, Simon Alexander, and Adrian McDonald
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 9037–9069, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023, 2023
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Clouds play an important role in the Earth’s climate system as they modulate the amount of radiation that either reaches the surface or is reflected back to space. This study demonstrates an approach to robustly evaluate surface-based observations against a large-scale model. We find that the large-scale model precipitates too infrequently relative to observations, contrary to literature documentation suggesting otherwise based on satellite measurements.
Valerian Hahn, Ralf Meerkötter, Christiane Voigt, Sonja Gisinger, Daniel Sauer, Valéry Catoire, Volker Dreiling, Hugh Coe, Cyrille Flamant, Stefan Kaufmann, Jonas Kleine, Peter Knippertz, Manuel Moser, Philip Rosenberg, Hans Schlager, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, and Jonathan Taylor
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8515–8530, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8515-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8515-2023, 2023
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During the DACCIWA campaign in West Africa, we found a 35 % increase in the cloud droplet concentration that formed in a polluted compared with a less polluted environment and a decrease of 17 % in effective droplet diameter. Radiative transfer simulations, based on the measured cloud properties, reveal that these low-level polluted clouds radiate only 2.6 % more energy back to space, compared with a less polluted cloud. The corresponding additional decrease in temperature is rather small.
Silke Groß, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Qiang Li, Martin Wirth, Benedikt Urbanek, Martina Krämer, Ralf Weigel, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8369–8381, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8369-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8369-2023, 2023
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Aviation-emitted aerosol can have an impact on cirrus clouds. We present optical and microphysical properties of mid-latitude cirrus clouds which were formed under the influence of aviation-emitted aerosol or which were formed under rather pristine conditions. We find that cirrus clouds affected by aviation-emitted aerosol show larger values of the particle linear depolarization ratio, larger mean effective ice particle diameters and decreased ice particle number concentrations.
Emma Järvinen, Franziska Nehlert, Guanglang Xu, Fritz Waitz, Guillaume Mioche, Regis Dupuy, Olivier Jourdan, and Martin Schnaiter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 7611–7633, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7611-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7611-2023, 2023
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The Arctic is warming faster than other regions. Arctic low-level mixed-phase clouds, where ice crystals and liquid droplets co-exist, are thought to have an important role in Arctic warming. Here we show airborne measurements of vertical distribution of liquid and ice particles and their relative abundance. Ice particles are found in relative warm clouds, which can be explained by multiplication of existing ice crystals. However, the role of ice particles in redistributing sun light is minimal.
Manuel Moser, Christiane Voigt, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Valerian Hahn, Guillaume Mioche, Olivier Jourdan, Régis Dupuy, Christophe Gourbeyre, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Johannes Lucke, Yvonne Boose, Mario Mech, Stephan Borrmann, André Ehrlich, Andreas Herber, Christof Lüpkes, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 7257–7280, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7257-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7257-2023, 2023
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This study provides a comprehensive microphysical and thermodynamic phase analysis of low-level clouds in the northern Fram Strait, above the sea ice and the open ocean, during spring and summer. Using airborne in situ cloud data, we show that the properties of Arctic low-level clouds vary significantly with seasonal meteorological situations and surface conditions. The observations presented in this study can help one to assess the role of clouds in the Arctic climate system.
Rachel Atlas and Christopher S. Bretherton
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4009–4030, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4009-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4009-2023, 2023
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The tropical tropopause layer exists between the troposphere and the stratosphere in the tropics. Very thin cirrus clouds cool Earth's surface by scrubbing water vapor (a greenhouse gas) out of air parcels as they ascend through the tropical tropopause layer on their way to the stratosphere. We show observational evidence from aircraft that small-scale (< 100 km) gravity waves and turbulence increase the amount of ice in these clouds and may allow them to remove more water vapor from the air.
Konstantinos Matthaios Doulgeris, Ville Vakkari, Ewan J. O'Connor, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Heikki Lihavainen, and David Brus
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2483–2498, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2483-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2483-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We investigated how different long-range-transported air masses can affect the microphysical properties of low-level clouds in a clean subarctic environment. A connection was revealed. Higher values of cloud droplet number concentrations were related to continental air masses, whereas the lowest values of number concentrations were related to marine air masses. These were characterized by larger cloud droplets. Clouds in all regions were sensitive to increases in cloud number concentration.
Fayçal Lamraoui, Martina Krämer, Armin Afchine, Adam B. Sokol, Sergey Khaykin, Apoorva Pandey, and Zhiming Kuang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2393–2419, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2393-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2393-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Cirrus in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) can play a key role in vertical transport. We investigate the role of different cloud regimes and the associated ice habits in regulating the properties of the TTL. We use high-resolution numerical experiments at the scales of large-eddy simulations (LESs) and aircraft measurements. We found that LES-scale parameterizations that predict ice shape are crucial for an accurate representation of TTL cirrus and thus the associated (de)hydration process.
Yun Li, Christoph Mahnke, Susanne Rohs, Ulrich Bundke, Nicole Spelten, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Silke Groß, Christiane Voigt, Ulrich Schumann, Andreas Petzold, and Martina Krämer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2251–2271, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2251-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2251-2023, 2023
Short summary
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The radiative effect of aviation-induced cirrus is closely related to ambient conditions and its microphysical properties. Our study investigated the occurrence of contrail and natural cirrus measured above central Europe in spring 2014. It finds that contrail cirrus appears frequently in the pressure range 200 to 245 hPa and occurs more often in slightly ice-subsaturated environments than expected. Avoiding slightly ice-subsaturated regions by aviation might help mitigate contrail cirrus.
Flor Vanessa Maciel, Minghui Diao, and Ryan Patnaude
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1103–1129, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1103-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1103-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol indirect effects on cirrus clouds are investigated during cirrus evolution, using global-scale in situ observations and climate model simulations. As cirrus evolves, the mechanisms to form ice crystals also change with time. Both small and large aerosols are found to affect cirrus properties. Southern Hemisphere cirrus appears to be more sensitive to additional aerosols. The climate model underestimates ice crystal mass, likely due to biases of relative humidity and vertical velocity.
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Short summary
This work highlights a new algorithm using data collected from the 2016–2018 NASA ORACLES field campaign. This algorithm synthesizes cloud and rain measurements to attain estimates of cloud and precipitation properties over the southeast Atlantic Ocean. Estimates produced by this algorithm compare well against in situ estimates. Increased rain fractions and rain rates are found in regions of atmospheric instability. This dataset can be used to explore aerosol–cloud–precipitation interactions.
This work highlights a new algorithm using data collected from the 2016–2018 NASA ORACLES field...
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