Factors affecting precipitation formation and precipitation susceptibility of marine stratocumulus with variable above- and below-cloud aerosol concentrations over the Southeast Atlantic

Gupta, Siddhant; McFarquhar, Greg M.; O'Brien, Joseph R.; Poellot, Michael R.; Delene, David J.; Miller, Rose M.; Small Griswold, Jennifer D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2769-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2769-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

New observations and related modelling studies of the aerosol–cloud–climate...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2769-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 4

Research article

|

02 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 02 Mar 2022

Factors affecting precipitation formation and precipitation susceptibility of marine stratocumulus with variable above- and below-cloud aerosol concentrations over the Southeast Atlantic

Siddhant Gupta, Greg M. McFarquhar, Joseph R. O'Brien, Michael R. Poellot, David J. Delene, Rose M. Miller, and Jennifer D. Small Griswold

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2769-2022-supplement

Data sets

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2016, Version 2 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2016_V2

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2017, Version 2 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2017_V2

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2018, Version 2 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2018_V2

Model code and software

Airborne Data Processing and Analysis Software Package (Version 3981) David J. Delene, A. Skow, J. O'Brien, N. Gapp, S. Wagner, K. Hibert, K. Sand, and G. Sova https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3733448

University of Illinois/Oklahoma Optical Array Probe (OAP) Processing Software G. M. McFarquhar, J. A. Finlon, D. M. Stechman, W. Wu, R. C. Jackson, and M. Freer https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1285969

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Short summary

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.