Articles | Volume 23, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4595-2023
© Author(s) 2023. 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-23-4595-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
17 Apr 2023
Research article |
| 17 Apr 2023
| 17 Apr 2023
Satellite observations of smoke–cloud–radiation interactions over the Amazon rainforest
Ross Herbert
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics, Department of Physics,
University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
Philip Stier
Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics, Department of Physics,
University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
Related authors
Ross James Herbert, Larissa Lacher, Alexander Böhmländer, Mark D. Tarn, Antione Canzi, Aidan Pantoya, Evelyn Freney, Kristina Höhler, Pia Bogert, Celine Planche, Ping Tian, Michael Adams, Sarah Barr, David Brus, Nicole Büttner, Martin Daily, Konstantinos Doulgeris, Konstantinos Eleftheridadis, Grant Forster, Romy Fösig, Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, Maria Gini, A. Gannett Hallar, Radovan Krejci, Elke Ludewig, Mauro Mazzola, Ian B. McCubbin, Tuukka Petäjä, Joseph Robinson, Franziska Vogel, Paul Zieger, Stephen R. Arnold, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Naruki Hiranuma, Ottmar Möhler, and Benjamin J. Murray
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-41, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-41, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
Short summary
Ice formation in sub-zero clouds is influenced by airborne particles called ice-nucleating particles (INPs), whose concentrations vary substantially over short time and spatial scales. To assess the role of INPs in our climate, a comprehensive and consistent global dataset is essential. Our GloPINE model-ready dataset is a major step in this direction, comprising 36,000 measurements made using a single instrument design (PINE) over 70,000 hours of operation at 20 northern hemisphere sites.
Xinyi Huang, Paul R. Field, Ross J. Herbert, Benjamin J. Murray, Floortje van den Heuvel, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Rachel W. N. Sansom, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-311, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-311, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol-cloud interactions and ice formation processes are key to modelling mixed-phase clouds in cold-air outbreaks. However, no studies have investigated the joint effects of these processes. Here, we used perturbed parameter ensembles and model emulators to show that these processes have strongly interacting effects on the properties of cold air outbreak clouds. Single sensitivity tests may therefore provide incomplete information about cloud-controlling factors.
Ross J. Herbert, Andrew I. L. Williams, Philipp Weiss, Duncan Watson-Parris, Elisabeth Dingley, Daniel Klocke, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 7789–7814, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7789-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7789-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Clouds exist at scales that climate models struggle to represent, limiting our knowledge of how climate change may impact clouds. Here we use a new kilometer-scale global model representing an important step towards the necessary scale. We focus on how aerosol particles modify clouds, radiation, and precipitation. We find the magnitude and manner of responses tend to vary from region to region, highlighting the potential of global kilometer-scale simulations and a need to represent aerosols in climate models.
Philipp Weiss, Ross Herbert, and Philip Stier
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 3877–3894, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3877-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3877-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols strongly influence Earth's climate as they interact with radiation and clouds. New Earth system models run at resolutions of a few kilometers. To simulate the Earth system with interactive aerosols, we developed a new aerosol module. It represents aerosols as an ensemble of lognormal modes with given sizes and compositions. We present a year-long simulation with four modes at a resolution of 5 km. It captures key processes like the formation of dust storms in the Sahara.
Ross J. Herbert, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Kirsty J. Pringle, Stephen R. Arnold, Benjamin J. Murray, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 291–325, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol particles that help form ice in clouds vary in number and type around the world and with time. However, in many weather and climate models cloud ice is not linked to aerosols that are known to nucleate ice. Here we report the first steps towards representing ice-nucleating particles within the UK Earth System Model. We conclude that in addition to ice nucleation by sea spray and mineral components of soil dust, we also need to represent ice nucleation by the organic components of soils.
Mathilde Ritman, William Jones, and Philip Stier
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-580, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-580, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
The link between storm updrafts and the high clouds they produce has been difficult to study at large scale but may be important for understanding climate sensitivity. This study uses a new high-resolution global climate model to see how updrafts typically relate to cloud evolution. More intense updrafts saw larger clouds, but this relationship was much stronger when the updrafts themselves were larger. That means changes in the usual size of updrafts could link to changes in high cloud area.
Ross James Herbert, Larissa Lacher, Alexander Böhmländer, Mark D. Tarn, Antione Canzi, Aidan Pantoya, Evelyn Freney, Kristina Höhler, Pia Bogert, Celine Planche, Ping Tian, Michael Adams, Sarah Barr, David Brus, Nicole Büttner, Martin Daily, Konstantinos Doulgeris, Konstantinos Eleftheridadis, Grant Forster, Romy Fösig, Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, Maria Gini, A. Gannett Hallar, Radovan Krejci, Elke Ludewig, Mauro Mazzola, Ian B. McCubbin, Tuukka Petäjä, Joseph Robinson, Franziska Vogel, Paul Zieger, Stephen R. Arnold, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Naruki Hiranuma, Ottmar Möhler, and Benjamin J. Murray
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-41, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-41, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
Short summary
Ice formation in sub-zero clouds is influenced by airborne particles called ice-nucleating particles (INPs), whose concentrations vary substantially over short time and spatial scales. To assess the role of INPs in our climate, a comprehensive and consistent global dataset is essential. Our GloPINE model-ready dataset is a major step in this direction, comprising 36,000 measurements made using a single instrument design (PINE) over 70,000 hours of operation at 20 northern hemisphere sites.
Xinyi Huang, Paul R. Field, Ross J. Herbert, Benjamin J. Murray, Floortje van den Heuvel, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Rachel W. N. Sansom, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-311, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-311, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol-cloud interactions and ice formation processes are key to modelling mixed-phase clouds in cold-air outbreaks. However, no studies have investigated the joint effects of these processes. Here, we used perturbed parameter ensembles and model emulators to show that these processes have strongly interacting effects on the properties of cold air outbreak clouds. Single sensitivity tests may therefore provide incomplete information about cloud-controlling factors.
William K. Jones and Philip Stier
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6391, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-6391, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
Deep convective storm clouds produce large areas of high-altitude anvil clouds which are vital to balancing the Earth's energy budget due to both the reflection of sunlight and absorption of infrared radiation. Recent research has highlighted important changes in the anvil cloud thickness. In this study, we investigate how changes of convective intensity and convective organisation have different effects on anvil structure across the entire anvil cloud lifecycle using a cloud tracking approach.
Maor Sela, Philipp Weiss, and Philip Stier
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5803, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5803, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
Short summary
Short summary
Clouds play a key role in Earth’s climate, but their representation in models remains uncertain. We use high-resolution simulations to examine how two statistical representations of cloud processes influence cloud and rain formation, and how these effects manifest in global models. We find that simulated clouds are highly sensitive to the chosen method, and that features such as rain, fog, and ice become even more variable at the global scale.
Hans Segura, Xabier Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, Philipp Weiss, Sebastian K. Müller, Thomas Rackow, Junhong Lee, Edgar Dolores-Tesillos, Imme Benedict, Matthias Aengenheyster, Razvan Aguridan, Gabriele Arduini, Alexander J. Baker, Jiawei Bao, Swantje Bastin, Eulàlia Baulenas, Tobias Becker, Sebastian Beyer, Hendryk Bockelmann, Nils Brüggemann, Lukas Brunner, Suvarchal K. Cheedela, Sushant Das, Jasper Denissen, Ian Dragaud, Piotr Dziekan, Madeleine Ekblom, Jan Frederik Engels, Monika Esch, Richard Forbes, Claudia Frauen, Lilli Freischem, Diego García-Maroto, Philipp Geier, Paul Gierz, Álvaro González-Cervera, Katherine Grayson, Matthew Griffith, Oliver Gutjahr, Helmuth Haak, Ioan Hadade, Kerstin Haslehner, Shabeh ul Hasson, Jan Hegewald, Lukas Kluft, Aleksei Koldunov, Nikolay Koldunov, Tobias Kölling, Shunya Koseki, Sergey Kosukhin, Josh Kousal, Peter Kuma, Arjun U. Kumar, Rumeng Li, Nicolas Maury, Maximilian Meindl, Sebastian Milinski, Kristian Mogensen, Bimochan Niraula, Jakub Nowak, Divya Sri Praturi, Ulrike Proske, Dian Putrasahan, René Redler, David Santuy, Domokos Sármány, Reiner Schnur, Patrick Scholz, Dmitry Sidorenko, Dorian Spät, Birgit Sützl, Daisuke Takasuka, Adrian Tompkins, Alejandro Uribe, Mirco Valentini, Menno Veerman, Aiko Voigt, Sarah Warnau, Fabian Wachsmann, Marta Wacławczyk, Nils Wedi, Karl-Hermann Wieners, Jonathan Wille, Marius Winkler, Yuting Wu, Florian Ziemen, Janos Zimmermann, Frida A.-M. Bender, Dragana Bojovic, Sandrine Bony, Simona Bordoni, Patrice Brehmer, Marcus Dengler, Emanuel Dutra, Saliou Faye, Erich Fischer, Chiel van Heerwaarden, Cathy Hohenegger, Heikki Järvinen, Markus Jochum, Thomas Jung, Johann H. Jungclaus, Noel S. Keenlyside, Daniel Klocke, Heike Konow, Martina Klose, Szymon Malinowski, Olivia Martius, Thorsten Mauritsen, Juan Pedro Mellado, Theresa Mieslinger, Elsa Mohino, Hanna Pawłowska, Karsten Peters-von Gehlen, Abdoulaye Sarré, Pajam Sobhani, Philip Stier, Lauri Tuppi, Pier Luigi Vidale, Irina Sandu, and Bjorn Stevens
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 7735–7761, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-7735-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-7735-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The Next Generation of Earth Modeling Systems project (nextGEMS) developed two Earth system models that use horizontal grid spacing of 10 km and finer, giving more fidelity to the representation of local phenomena, globally. In its fourth cycle, nextGEMS simulated the Earth System climate over the 2020–2049 period under the SSP3-7.0 scenario. Here, we provide an overview of nextGEMS, insights into the model development, and the realism of multi-decadal, kilometer-scale simulations.
Ross J. Herbert, Andrew I. L. Williams, Philipp Weiss, Duncan Watson-Parris, Elisabeth Dingley, Daniel Klocke, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 7789–7814, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7789-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7789-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Clouds exist at scales that climate models struggle to represent, limiting our knowledge of how climate change may impact clouds. Here we use a new kilometer-scale global model representing an important step towards the necessary scale. We focus on how aerosol particles modify clouds, radiation, and precipitation. We find the magnitude and manner of responses tend to vary from region to region, highlighting the potential of global kilometer-scale simulations and a need to represent aerosols in climate models.
Philipp Weiss, Ross Herbert, and Philip Stier
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 3877–3894, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3877-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-3877-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols strongly influence Earth's climate as they interact with radiation and clouds. New Earth system models run at resolutions of a few kilometers. To simulate the Earth system with interactive aerosols, we developed a new aerosol module. It represents aerosols as an ensemble of lognormal modes with given sizes and compositions. We present a year-long simulation with four modes at a resolution of 5 km. It captures key processes like the formation of dust storms in the Sahara.
Mariya Petrenko, Ralph Kahn, Mian Chin, Susanne E. Bauer, Tommi Bergman, Huisheng Bian, Gabriele Curci, Ben Johnson, Johannes W. Kaiser, Zak Kipling, Harri Kokkola, Xiaohong Liu, Keren Mezuman, Tero Mielonen, Gunnar Myhre, Xiaohua Pan, Anna Protonotariou, Samuel Remy, Ragnhild Bieltvedt Skeie, Philip Stier, Toshihiko Takemura, Kostas Tsigaridis, Hailong Wang, Duncan Watson-Parris, and Kai Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1545–1567, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1545-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1545-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We compared smoke plume simulations from 11 global models to each other and to satellite smoke amount observations aimed at constraining smoke source strength. In regions where plumes are thick and background aerosol is low, models and satellites compare well. However, the input emission inventory tends to underestimate in many places, and particle property and loss rate assumptions vary enormously among models, causing uncertainties that require systematic in situ measurements to resolve.
Ross J. Herbert, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Kirsty J. Pringle, Stephen R. Arnold, Benjamin J. Murray, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 291–325, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol particles that help form ice in clouds vary in number and type around the world and with time. However, in many weather and climate models cloud ice is not linked to aerosols that are known to nucleate ice. Here we report the first steps towards representing ice-nucleating particles within the UK Earth System Model. We conclude that in addition to ice nucleation by sea spray and mineral components of soil dust, we also need to represent ice nucleation by the organic components of soils.
Anna Tippett, Edward Gryspeerdt, Peter Manshausen, Philip Stier, and Tristan W. P. Smith
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13269–13283, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13269-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13269-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ship emissions can form artificially brightened clouds, known as ship tracks, and provide us with an opportunity to investigate how aerosols interact with clouds. Previous studies that used ship tracks suggest that clouds can experience large increases in the amount of water (LWP) from aerosols. Here, we show that there is a bias in previous research and that, when we account for this bias, the LWP response to aerosols is much weaker than previously reported.
Sarah Wilson Kemsley, Paulo Ceppi, Hendrik Andersen, Jan Cermak, Philip Stier, and Peer Nowack
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8295–8316, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8295-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8295-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aiming to inform parameter selection for future observational constraint analyses, we incorporate five candidate meteorological drivers specifically targeting high clouds into a cloud controlling factor framework within a range of spatial domain sizes. We find a discrepancy between optimal domain size for predicting locally and globally aggregated cloud radiative anomalies and identify upper-tropospheric static stability as an important high-cloud controlling factor.
G. Alexander Sokolowsky, Sean W. Freeman, William K. Jones, Julia Kukulies, Fabian Senf, Peter J. Marinescu, Max Heikenfeld, Kelcy N. Brunner, Eric C. Bruning, Scott M. Collis, Robert C. Jackson, Gabrielle R. Leung, Nils Pfeifer, Bhupendra A. Raut, Stephen M. Saleeby, Philip Stier, and Susan C. van den Heever
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 5309–5330, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5309-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5309-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Building on previous analysis tools developed for atmospheric science, the original release of the Tracking and Object-Based Analysis (tobac) Python package, v1.2, was open-source, modular, and insensitive to the type of gridded input data. Here, we present the latest version of tobac, v1.5, which substantially improves scientific capabilities and computational efficiency from the previous version. These enhancements permit new uses for tobac in atmospheric science and potentially other fields.
Johannes Mülmenstädt, Edward Gryspeerdt, Sudhakar Dipu, Johannes Quaas, Andrew S. Ackerman, Ann M. Fridlind, Florian Tornow, Susanne E. Bauer, Andrew Gettelman, Yi Ming, Youtong Zheng, Po-Lun Ma, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, Matthew W. Christensen, Adam C. Varble, L. Ruby Leung, Xiaohong Liu, David Neubauer, Daniel G. Partridge, Philip Stier, and Toshihiko Takemura
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7331–7345, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7331-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7331-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Human activities release copious amounts of small particles called aerosols into the atmosphere. These particles change how much sunlight clouds reflect to space, an important human perturbation of the climate, whose magnitude is highly uncertain. We found that the latest climate models show a negative correlation but a positive causal relationship between aerosols and cloud water. This means we need to be very careful when we interpret observational studies that can only see correlation.
William K. Jones, Martin Stengel, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5165–5180, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5165-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5165-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Storm clouds cover large areas of the tropics. These clouds both reflect incoming sunlight and trap heat from the atmosphere below, regulating the temperature of the tropics. Over land, storm clouds occur in the late afternoon and evening and so exist both during the daytime and at night. Changes in this timing could upset the balance of the respective cooling and heating effects of these clouds. We find that isolated storms have a larger effect on this balance than their small size suggests.
Bjorn Stevens, Stefan Adami, Tariq Ali, Hartwig Anzt, Zafer Aslan, Sabine Attinger, Jaana Bäck, Johanna Baehr, Peter Bauer, Natacha Bernier, Bob Bishop, Hendryk Bockelmann, Sandrine Bony, Guy Brasseur, David N. Bresch, Sean Breyer, Gilbert Brunet, Pier Luigi Buttigieg, Junji Cao, Christelle Castet, Yafang Cheng, Ayantika Dey Choudhury, Deborah Coen, Susanne Crewell, Atish Dabholkar, Qing Dai, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Dale Durran, Ayoub El Gaidi, Charlie Ewen, Eleftheria Exarchou, Veronika Eyring, Florencia Falkinhoff, David Farrell, Piers M. Forster, Ariane Frassoni, Claudia Frauen, Oliver Fuhrer, Shahzad Gani, Edwin Gerber, Debra Goldfarb, Jens Grieger, Nicolas Gruber, Wilco Hazeleger, Rolf Herken, Chris Hewitt, Torsten Hoefler, Huang-Hsiung Hsu, Daniela Jacob, Alexandra Jahn, Christian Jakob, Thomas Jung, Christopher Kadow, In-Sik Kang, Sarah Kang, Karthik Kashinath, Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw, Daniel Klocke, Uta Kloenne, Milan Klöwer, Chihiro Kodama, Stefan Kollet, Tobias Kölling, Jenni Kontkanen, Steve Kopp, Michal Koran, Markku Kulmala, Hanna Lappalainen, Fakhria Latifi, Bryan Lawrence, June Yi Lee, Quentin Lejeun, Christian Lessig, Chao Li, Thomas Lippert, Jürg Luterbacher, Pekka Manninen, Jochem Marotzke, Satoshi Matsouoka, Charlotte Merchant, Peter Messmer, Gero Michel, Kristel Michielsen, Tomoki Miyakawa, Jens Müller, Ramsha Munir, Sandeep Narayanasetti, Ousmane Ndiaye, Carlos Nobre, Achim Oberg, Riko Oki, Tuba Özkan-Haller, Tim Palmer, Stan Posey, Andreas Prein, Odessa Primus, Mike Pritchard, Julie Pullen, Dian Putrasahan, Johannes Quaas, Krishnan Raghavan, Venkatachalam Ramaswamy, Markus Rapp, Florian Rauser, Markus Reichstein, Aromar Revi, Sonakshi Saluja, Masaki Satoh, Vera Schemann, Sebastian Schemm, Christina Schnadt Poberaj, Thomas Schulthess, Cath Senior, Jagadish Shukla, Manmeet Singh, Julia Slingo, Adam Sobel, Silvina Solman, Jenna Spitzer, Philip Stier, Thomas Stocker, Sarah Strock, Hang Su, Petteri Taalas, John Taylor, Susann Tegtmeier, Georg Teutsch, Adrian Tompkins, Uwe Ulbrich, Pier-Luigi Vidale, Chien-Ming Wu, Hao Xu, Najibullah Zaki, Laure Zanna, Tianjun Zhou, and Florian Ziemen
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 2113–2122, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2113-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2113-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
To manage Earth in the Anthropocene, new tools, new institutions, and new forms of international cooperation will be required. Earth Virtualization Engines is proposed as an international federation of centers of excellence to empower all people to respond to the immense and urgent challenges posed by climate change.
Karoline Block, Mahnoosh Haghighatnasab, Daniel G. Partridge, Philip Stier, and Johannes Quaas
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 443–470, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-443-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-443-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols being able to act as condensation nuclei for cloud droplets (CCNs) are a key element in cloud formation but very difficult to determine. In this study we present a new global vertically resolved CCN dataset for various humidity conditions and aerosols. It is obtained using an atmospheric model (CAMS reanalysis) that is fed by satellite observations of light extinction (AOD). We investigate and evaluate the abundance of CCNs in the atmosphere and their temporal and spatial occurrence.
Peter Manshausen, Duncan Watson-Parris, Matthew W. Christensen, Jukka-Pekka Jalkanen, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 12545–12555, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12545-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12545-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol from burning fuel changes cloud properties, e.g., the number of droplets and the content of water. Here, we study how clouds respond to different amounts of shipping aerosol. Droplet numbers increase linearly with increasing aerosol over a broad range until they stop increasing, while the amount of liquid water always increases, independently of emission amount. These changes in cloud properties can make them reflect more or less sunlight, which is important for the earth's climate.
Hendrik Andersen, Jan Cermak, Alyson Douglas, Timothy A. Myers, Peer Nowack, Philip Stier, Casey J. Wall, and Sarah Wilson Kemsley
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 10775–10794, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-10775-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-10775-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This study uses an observation-based cloud-controlling factor framework to study near-global sensitivities of cloud radiative effects to a large number of meteorological and aerosol controls. We present near-global sensitivity patterns to selected thermodynamic, dynamic, and aerosol factors and discuss the physical mechanisms underlying the derived sensitivities. Our study hopes to guide future analyses aimed at constraining cloud feedbacks and aerosol–cloud interactions.
Leighton A. Regayre, Lucia Deaconu, Daniel P. Grosvenor, David M. H. Sexton, Christopher Symonds, Tom Langton, Duncan Watson-Paris, Jane P. Mulcahy, Kirsty J. Pringle, Mark Richardson, Jill S. Johnson, John W. Rostron, Hamish Gordon, Grenville Lister, Philip Stier, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8749–8768, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8749-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol forcing of Earth’s energy balance has persisted as a major cause of uncertainty in climate simulations over generations of climate model development. We show that structural deficiencies in a climate model are exposed by comprehensively exploring parametric uncertainty and that these deficiencies limit how much the model uncertainty can be reduced through observational constraint. This provides a future pathway towards building models with greater physical realism and lower uncertainty.
William K. Jones, Matthew W. Christensen, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 1043–1059, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1043-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1043-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Geostationary weather satellites have been used to detect storm clouds since their earliest applications. However, this task remains difficult as imaging satellites cannot observe the strong vertical winds that are characteristic of storm clouds. Here we introduce a new method that allows us to detect the early development of storms and continue to track them throughout their lifetime, allowing us to study how their early behaviour affects subsequent weather.
Leighton A. Regayre, Lucia Deaconu, Daniel P. Grosvenor, David Sexton, Christopher C. Symonds, Tom Langton, Duncan Watson-Paris, Jane P. Mulcahy, Kirsty J. Pringle, Mark Richardson, Jill S. Johnson, John Rostron, Hamish Gordon, Grenville Lister, Philip Stier, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1330, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1330, 2022
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
We show that potential structural deficiencies in a climate model can be exposed by comprehensively exploring its parametric uncertainty, and that these deficiencies limit how much the model uncertainty can be reduced through observational constraint. Combined consideration of parametric and structural uncertainties provides a future pathway towards building models that have greater physical realism and lower uncertainty.
Johannes Quaas, Hailing Jia, Chris Smith, Anna Lea Albright, Wenche Aas, Nicolas Bellouin, Olivier Boucher, Marie Doutriaux-Boucher, Piers M. Forster, Daniel Grosvenor, Stuart Jenkins, Zbigniew Klimont, Norman G. Loeb, Xiaoyan Ma, Vaishali Naik, Fabien Paulot, Philip Stier, Martin Wild, Gunnar Myhre, and Michael Schulz
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12221–12239, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Pollution particles cool climate and offset part of the global warming. However, they are washed out by rain and thus their effect responds quickly to changes in emissions. We show multiple datasets to demonstrate that aerosol emissions and their concentrations declined in many regions influenced by human emissions, as did the effects on clouds. Consequently, the cooling impact on the Earth energy budget became smaller. This change in trend implies a relative warming.
Haochi Che, Philip Stier, Duncan Watson-Parris, Hamish Gordon, and Lucia Deaconu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10789–10807, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10789-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10789-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Extensive stratocumulus clouds over the south-eastern Atlantic (SEA) can lead to a cooling effect on the climate. A key pathway by which aerosols affect cloud properties is by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Here, we investigated the source attribution of CCN in the SEA as well as the cloud responses. Our results show that aerosol nucleation contributes most to CCN in the marine boundary layer. In terms of emissions, anthropogenic sources contribute most to the CCN and cloud droplets.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Duncan Watson-Parris, Andrew Williams, Lucia Deaconu, and Philip Stier
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 7659–7672, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-7659-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-7659-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The Earth System Emulator (ESEm) provides a fast and flexible framework for emulating a wide variety of Earth science datasets and tools for constraining (or tuning) models of any complexity. Three distinct use cases are presented that demonstrate the utility of ESEm and provide some insight into the use of machine learning for emulation in these different settings. The open-source Python package is freely available so that it might become a valuable tool for the community.
Maria Sand, Bjørn H. Samset, Gunnar Myhre, Jonas Gliß, Susanne E. Bauer, Huisheng Bian, Mian Chin, Ramiro Checa-Garcia, Paul Ginoux, Zak Kipling, Alf Kirkevåg, Harri Kokkola, Philippe Le Sager, Marianne T. Lund, Hitoshi Matsui, Twan van Noije, Dirk J. L. Olivié, Samuel Remy, Michael Schulz, Philip Stier, Camilla W. Stjern, Toshihiko Takemura, Kostas Tsigaridis, Svetlana G. Tsyro, and Duncan Watson-Parris
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15929–15947, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15929-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15929-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Absorption of shortwave radiation by aerosols can modify precipitation and clouds but is poorly constrained in models. A total of 15 different aerosol models from AeroCom phase III have reported total aerosol absorption, and for the first time, 11 of these models have reported in a consistent experiment the contributions to absorption from black carbon, dust, and organic aerosol. Here, we document the model diversity in aerosol absorption.
Shipeng Zhang, Philip Stier, and Duncan Watson-Parris
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10179–10197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10179-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10179-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The relationship between aerosol-induced changes in atmospheric energetics and precipitation responses across different scales is studied in terms of fast (radiatively or microphysically mediated) and slow (temperature-mediated) responses. We introduced a method to decompose rainfall changes into contributions from clouds, aerosols, and clear–clean sky from an energetic perspective. It provides a way to better interpret and quantify the precipitation changes caused by aerosol perturbations.
Nick Schutgens, Oleg Dubovik, Otto Hasekamp, Omar Torres, Hiren Jethva, Peter J. T. Leonard, Pavel Litvinov, Jens Redemann, Yohei Shinozuka, Gerrit de Leeuw, Stefan Kinne, Thomas Popp, Michael Schulz, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 6895–6917, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6895-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6895-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Absorptive aerosol has a potentially large impact on climate change. We evaluate and intercompare four global satellite datasets of absorptive aerosol optical depth (AAOD) and single-scattering albedo (SSA). We show that these datasets show reasonable correlations with the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) reference, although significant biases remain. In a follow-up paper we show that these observations nevertheless can be used for model evaluation.
Cited articles
Andreae, M. O., Rosenfeld, D., Artaxo, P., Costa, A. A., Frank, G. P., Longo, K. M., and Silva-Dias, M. A. F.: Smoking Rain Clouds over the Amazon, Science, 303, 1337–1342, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1092779, 2004.
Aragão, L. E. O. C., Anderson, L. O., Fonseca, M. G., Rosan, T. M.,
Vedovato, L. B., Wagner, F. H., Silva, C. V. J., Silva Junior, C. H. L.,
Arai, E., Aguiar, A. P., Barlow, J., Berenguer, E., Deeter, M. N.,
Domingues, L. G., Gatti, L., Gloor, M., Malhi, Y., Marengo, J. A., Miller,
J. B., Phillips, O. L., and Saatchi, S.: 21st Century drought-related fires
counteract the decline of Amazon deforestation carbon emissions, Nat. Commun., 9, 536, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02771-y, 2018.
Barkley, A. E., Prospero, J. M., Mahowald, N., Hamilton, D. S., Popendorf,
K. J., Oehlert, A. M., Pourmand, A., Gatineau, A., Panechou-Pulcherie, K.,
Blackwelder, P., and Gaston, C. J.: African biomass burning is a substantial
source of phosphorus deposition to the Amazon, Tropical Atlantic Ocean, and
Southern Ocean, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 116,
16216–16221, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906091116, 2019.
Bevan, S. L., North, P. R. J., Grey, W. M. F., Los, S. O., and Plummer, S.
E.: The impact of atmospheric aerosol from biomass burning on Amazon
dry-season drought, in: European Space Agency, Special Publication, ESA SP,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2008jd011112, 2008.
Boisier, J. P., Ciais, P., Ducharne, A., and Guimberteau, M.: Projected
strengthening of Amazonian dry season by constrained climate model
simulations, Nat. Clim. Chang., 5, 656–660,
https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2658, 2015.
Bond, T. C., Doherty, S. J., Fahey, D. W., Forster, P. M., Berntsen, T.,
DeAngelo, B. J., Flanner, M. G., Ghan, S., Kärcher, B., Koch, D., Kinne,
S., Kondo, Y., Quinn, P. K., Sarofim, M. C., Schultz, M. G., Schulz, M.,
Venkataraman, C., Zhang, H., Zhang, S., Bellouin, N., Guttikunda, S. K.,
Hopke, P. K., Jacobson, M. Z., Kaiser, J. W., Klimont, Z., Lohmann, U.,
Schwarz, J. P., Shindell, D., Storelvmo, T., Warren, S. G., and Zender, C.
S.: Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific
assessment, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 5380–5552,
https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50171, 2013.
Boulton, C. A., Lenton, T. M., and Boers, N.: Pronounced loss of Amazon
rainforest resilience since the early 2000s, Nat. Clim. Chang., 12,
271–278, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01287-8, 2022.
Braga, R. C., Rosenfeld, D., Weigel, R., Jurkat, T., Andreae, M. O., Wendisch, M., Pöhlker, M. L., Klimach, T., Pöschl, U., Pöhlker, C., Voigt, C., Mahnke, C., Borrmann, S., Albrecht, R. I., Molleker, S., Vila, D. A., Machado, L. A. T., and Artaxo, P.: Comparing parameterized versus measured microphysical properties of tropical convective cloud bases during the ACRIDICON–CHUVA campaign, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 7365–7386, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-7365-2017, 2017.
Camponogara, G., Silva Dias, M. A. F., and Carrió, G. G.: Relationship between Amazon biomass burning aerosols and rainfall over the La Plata Basin, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 4397–4407, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-4397-2014, 2014.
Cesana, G. and Storelvmo, T.: Improving climate projections by understanding
how cloud phase affects radiation, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 122, 4594–4599, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD026927, 2017.
Ciemer, C., Rehm, L., Kurths, J., Donner, R. V., Winkelmann, R., and Boers,
N.: An early-warning indicator for Amazon droughts exclusively based on
tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures, Environ. Res. Lett., 15, 094087,
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab9cff, 2020.
Dagan, G., Stier, P., Christensen, M., Cioni, G., Klocke, D., and Seifert, A.: Atmospheric energy budget response to idealized aerosol perturbation in tropical cloud systems, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4523–4544, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4523-2020, 2020.
de Oliveira, G., Chen, J. M., Mataveli, G. A. V., Chaves, M. E. D., Seixas,
H. T., da Cardozo, F. S., Shimabukuro, Y. E., He, L., Stark, S. C., and dos
Santos, C. A. C.: Rapid recent deforestation incursion in a vulnerable
indigenous land in the Brazilian Amazon and fire-driven emissions of fine
particulate aerosol pollutants, Forests, 11, 829–829,
https://doi.org/10.3390/f11080829, 2020.
Di Biagio, C., Formenti, P., Balkanski, Y., Caponi, L., Cazaunau, M., Pangui, E., Journet, E., Nowak, S., Andreae, M. O., Kandler, K., Saeed, T., Piketh, S., Seibert, D., Williams, E., and Doussin, J.-F.: Complex refractive indices and single-scattering albedo of global dust aerosols in the shortwave spectrum and relationship to size and iron content, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 15503–15531, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-15503-2019, 2019.
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts: ECMWF Re-Analysis 5 (ERA5) model data, The Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) Archive [data set], https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ecmwf-era5/, last access: 10 June 2022a.
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts: ECRAD – ECMWF atmospheric radiation scheme, GitHub [code], https://github.com/ecmwf-ifs/ecrad, last access: 7 October 2022b.
Fan, J., Rosenfeld, D., Zhang, Y., Giangrande, S. E., Li, Z., Machado, L. A.
T., Martin, S. T., Yang, Y., Wang, J., Artaxo, P., Barbosa, H. M. J., Braga,
R. C., Comstock, J. M., Feng, Z., Gao, W., Gomes, H. B., Mei, F.,
Pöhlker, C., Pöhlker, M. L., Pöschl, U., and De Souza, R. A. F.:
Substantial convection and precipitation enhancements by ultrafine aerosol
particles, Science, 359, 411–418, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan8461, 2018.
Forster, P., Storelvmo, T., Armour, K., Collins, W., Dufresne, J.-L., Frame,
D., Lunt, D., J., Mauritsen, T., Palmer, M., D., Watanabe, M., Wild, M., and
Zhang, H.: The Earth's Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate
Sensitivity, in: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S. L., Péan, C., Berger, S., Caud, N., Chen, Y., Goldfarb, L., Gomis, M. I., Huang, M., Leitzell, K., Lonnoy, E., Matthews, J. B. R., Maycock, T. K., Waterfield, T., Yelekçi, O., Yu, R., and Zhou, B., Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 923–1054,
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.009, 2021.
Gonçalves, W. A., Machado, L. A. T., and Kirstetter, P.-E.: Influence of biomass aerosol on precipitation over the Central Amazon: an observational study, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 6789–6800, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-6789-2015, 2015.
Gonzalez-Alonso, L., Val Martin, M., and Kahn, R. A.: Biomass-burning smoke heights over the Amazon observed from space, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 1685–1702, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1685-2019, 2019.
Gryspeerdt, E., Stier, P., White, B. A., and Kipling, Z.: Wet scavenging limits the detection of aerosol effects on precipitation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 7557–7570, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7557-2015, 2015.
Herbert, R.: Dataset for manuscript “Satellite Observations of Smoke-Cloud-Radiation Interactions Over the Amazon Rainforest”, Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7664442, 2022.
Herbert, R., Stier, P., and Dagan, G.: Isolating Large-Scale Smoke Impacts
on Cloud and Precipitation Processes Over the Amazon With Convection
Permitting Resolution, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 126,
e2021JD034615, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD034615, 2021.
Herbert, R. J., Bellouin, N., Highwood, E. J., and Hill, A. A.: Diurnal cycle of the semi-direct effect from a persistent absorbing aerosol layer over marine stratocumulus in large-eddy simulations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1317–1340, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1317-2020, 2020.
Hodzic, A. and Duvel, J. P.: Impact of Biomass Burning Aerosols on the
Diurnal Cycle of Convective Clouds and Precipitation Over a Tropical Island,
J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 123, 1017–1036, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD027521, 2018.
Hogan, R. J. and Bozzo, A.: A Flexible and Efficient Radiation Scheme for
the ECMWF Model, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 10, 1990–2008, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001364, 2018.
Holanda, B. A., Pöhlker, M. L., Walter, D., Saturno, J., Sörgel, M., Ditas, J., Ditas, F., Schulz, C., Franco, M. A., Wang, Q., Donth, T., Artaxo, P., Barbosa, H. M. J., Borrmann, S., Braga, R., Brito, J., Cheng, Y., Dollner, M., Kaiser, J. W., Klimach, T., Knote, C., Krüger, O. O., Fütterer, D., Lavrič, J. V., Ma, N., Machado, L. A. T., Ming, J., Morais, F. G., Paulsen, H., Sauer, D., Schlager, H., Schneider, J., Su, H., Weinzierl, B., Walser, A., Wendisch, M., Ziereis, H., Zöger, M., Pöschl, U., Andreae, M. O., and Pöhlker, C.: Influx of African biomass burning aerosol during the Amazonian dry season through layered transatlantic transport of black carbon-rich smoke, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4757–4785, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4757-2020, 2020.
Huang, Y., Zhu, B., Zhu, Z., Zhang, T., Gong, W., Ji, Y., Xia, X., Wang, L.,
Zhou, X., and Chen, D.: Evaluation and Comparison of MODIS Collection 6.1
and Collection 6 Dark Target Aerosol Optical Depth over Mainland China Under
Various Conditions Including Spatiotemporal Distribution, Haze Effects, and
Underlying Surface, Earth and Space Science, 6, 2575–2592,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EA000809, 2019.
Igel, A. L. and van den Heever, S. C.: Invigoration or Enervation of
Convective Clouds by Aerosols?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48,
e2021GL093804, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093804, 2021.
IPCC: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Stocker, T. F., Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K., Tignor, M., Allen, S. K., Boschung, J., Nauels, A., Xia, Y., Bex, V., and Midgley, P. M., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1535 pp., https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324, 2013.
Jimenez, J. C., Marengo, J. A., Alves, L. M., Sulca, J. C., Takahashi, K.,
Ferrett, S., and Collins, M.: The role of ENSO flavours and TNA on recent
droughts over Amazon forests and the Northeast Brazil region, Int. J. Climatol., 41, 3761–3780, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6453, 2021.
Jiménez-Muñoz, J. C., Mattar, C., Barichivich, J.,
Santamaría-Artigas, A., Takahashi, K., Malhi, Y., Sobrino, J. A., and
Schrier, G. van der: Record-breaking warming and extreme drought in the
Amazon rainforest during the course of El Niño 2015–2016, Sci. Rep., 6, 33130, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep33130, 2016.
Khain, A., Rosenfeld, D., and Pokrovsky, A.: Aerosol impact on the dynamics
and microphysics of deep convective clouds, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 131, 2639–2663, https://doi.org/10.1256/qj.04.62, 2005.
Koch, D. and Del Genio, A. D.: Black carbon semi-direct effects on cloud cover: review and synthesis, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 7685–7696, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-7685-2010, 2010.
Koren, I., Kaufman, Y. J., Remer, L. A., and Martins, J. V.: Measurement of
the Effect of Amazon Smoke on Inhibition of Cloud Formation, Science, 303,
1342–1345, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1089424, 2004.
Koren, I., Vanderlei Martins, J., Remer, L. A., and Afargan, H.: Smoke
invigoration versus inhibition of clouds over the amazon, Science, 321,
946–949, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1159185, 2008.
Koren, I., Remer, L. A., Altaratz, O., Martins, J. V., and Davidi, A.: Aerosol-induced changes of convective cloud anvils produce strong climate warming, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 5001–5010, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-5001-2010, 2010a.
Koren, I., Feingold, G., and Remer, L. A.: The invigoration of deep convective clouds over the Atlantic: aerosol effect, meteorology or retrieval artifact?, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 8855–8872, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-8855-2010, 2010b.
Koren, I., Dagan, G., and Altaratz, O.: From aerosol-limited to invigoration
of warm convective clouds, Science, 344, 1143–1146,
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1252595, 2014.
Lebo, Z.: A numerical investigation of the potential effects of
aerosol-induced warming and updraft width and slope on updraft intensity in
deep convective clouds, J. Atmos. Sci., 75, 535–554,
https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-16-0368.1, 2018.
Lee, S. S., Feingold, G., McComiskey, A., Yamaguchi, T., Koren, I.,
Vanderlei Martins, J., and Yu, H.: Effect of gradients in biomass burning
aerosol on shallow cumulus convective circulations, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 119, 9948–9964, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021819, 2014.
Levy, R. C., Mattoo, S., Munchak, L. A., Remer, L. A., Sayer, A. M., Patadia, F., and Hsu, N. C.: The Collection 6 MODIS aerosol products over land and ocean, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 2989–3034, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-2989-2013, 2013.
Libonati, R., Pereira, J. M. C., Da Camara, C. C., Peres, L. F., Oom, D.,
Rodrigues, J. A., Santos, F. L. M., Trigo, R. M., Gouveia, C. M. P.,
Machado-Silva, F., Enrich-Prast, A., and Silva, J. M. N.: Twenty-first
century droughts have not increasingly exacerbated fire season severity in
the Brazilian Amazon, Sci. Rep., 11, 4400,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82158-8, 2021.
Liu, L., Cheng, Y., Wang, S., Wei, C., Pöhlker, M. L., Pöhlker, C., Artaxo, P., Shrivastava, M., Andreae, M. O., Pöschl, U., and Su, H.: Impact of biomass burning aerosols on radiation, clouds, and precipitation over the Amazon: relative importance of aerosol–cloud and aerosol–radiation interactions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 13283–13301, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13283-2020, 2020.
Liu, S., Aiken, A. C., Arata, C., Dubey, M. K., Stockwell, C. E., Yokelson,
R. J., Stone, E. A., Jayarathne, T., Robinson, A. L., DeMott, P. J., and
Kreidenweis, S. M.: Aerosol single scattering albedo dependence on biomass
combustion efficiency: Laboratory and field studies, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 742–748, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013GL058392, 2014.
Marinescu, P. J., Heever, S. C. van den, Heikenfeld, M., Barrett, A. I.,
Barthlott, C., Hoose, C., Fan, J., Fridlind, A. M., Matsui, T.,
Miltenberger, A. K., Stier, P., Vie, B., White, B. A., and Zhang, Y.:
Impacts of Varying Concentrations of Cloud Condensation Nuclei on Deep
Convective Cloud Updrafts – A Multimodel Assessment, J. Atmos. Sci., 78, 1147–1172, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-20-0200.1, 2021.
Martins, J. A. and Silva Dias, M. A. F.: The impact of smoke from forest
fires on the spectral dispersion of cloud droplet size distributions in the
Amazonian region, Environ. Res. Lett., 4, 015002,
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/015002, 2009.
Martins, J. A., Silva Dias, M. A. F., and Gonçalves, F. L. T.: Impact of
biomass burning aerosols on precipitation in the Amazon: A modeling case
study, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D02207, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007jd009587, 2009.
McClure, C. D., Lim, C. Y., Hagan, D. H., Kroll, J. H., and Cappa, C. D.: Biomass-burning-derived particles from a wide variety of fuels – Part 1: Properties of primary particles, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1531–1547, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1531-2020, 2020.
NASA: NASA CERES ordering, subsetting, visualization tool, NASA [data set], https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/, last access: 29 April 2021.
NASA: NASA GESDISC data archive, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center [data set], https://gpm1.gesdisc.eosdis.nasa.gov/data/, last access: 2 June 2022.
NASA: Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System Distributed Active Archive Center, NASA EOSDIS [data set], https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/archive/allData/61/, last access: 27 January 2023.
NASA EOSDIS: EARTHDATA search archive, NASA EOSDIS [data set], https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/, last access: 21 April 2021.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: The AERONET data display interface, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center [data set], https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/, last access: 14 February 2023.
NOAA: HYSPLIT-WEB trajectory model, NOAA [code], https://www.ready.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php, last access: 14 May 2022.
Palácios, R. da S., Romera, K. S., Curado, L. F. A., Banga, N. M.,
Rothmund, L. D., Sallo, F. d. S., Morais, D., Santos, A. C. A., Moraes, T.
J., Morais, F. G., Landulfo, E., Franco, M. A. de M., Kuhnen, I. A.,
Marques, J. B., Nogueira, J. d. S., Júnior, L. C. G. d. V., and
Rodrigues, T. R.: Long Term Analysis of Optical and Radiative Properties of
Aerosols in the Amazon Basin, Aerosol Air Qual. Res., 20, 139–154,
https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2019.04.0189, 2020.
Petters, M. D., Carrico, C. M., Kreidenweis, S. M., Prenni, A. J., DeMott,
P. J., Collett Jr., J. L., and Moosmüller, H.: Cloud condensation
nucleation activity of biomass burning aerosol, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 114, D22205, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012353, 2009.
Platnick, S., Meyer, K. G., King, M. D., Wind, G., Amarasinghe, N.,
Marchant, B., Arnold, G. T., Zhang, Z., Hubanks, P. A., Holz, R. E., Yang,
P., Ridgway, W. L., and Riedi, J.: The MODIS Cloud Optical and Microphysical
Products: Collection 6 Updates and Examples From Terra and Aqua, IEEE
T. Geosci. Remote, 55, 502–525, https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2016.2610522, 2017.
Rosário, N. E., Yamasoe, M. A., Brindley, H., Eck, T. F., and Schafer,
J.: Downwelling solar irradiance in the biomass burning region of the
southern Amazon: Dependence on aerosol intensive optical properties and role
of water vapor, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 116, D18304, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD015956, 2011.
Sayer, A. M., Hsu, N. C., Lee, J., Kim, W. V., and Dutcher, S. T.:
Validation, Stability, and Consistency of MODIS Collection 6.1 and VIIRS
Version 1 Deep Blue Aerosol Data Over Land, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 124, 4658–4688, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029598, 2019.
Seiki, T. and Nakajima, T.: Aerosol Effects of the Condensation Process on a
Convective Cloud Simulation, J. Atmos. Sci., 71, 833–853, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-12-0195.1, 2014.
Stein, A. F., Draxler, R. R., Rolph, G. D., Stunder, B. J. B., Cohen, M. D.,
and Ngan, F.: NOAA's HYSPLIT Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion Modeling
System, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 96, 2059–2077,
https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00110.1, 2015.
Ten Hoeve, J. E., Remer, L. A., and Jacobson, M. Z.: Microphysical and radiative effects of aerosols on warm clouds during the Amazon biomass burning season as observed by MODIS: impacts of water vapor and land cover, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 3021–3036, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-3021-2011, 2011.
Ten Hoeve, J. E., Remer, L. A., Correia, A. L., and Jacobson, M. Z.: Recent
shift from forest to savanna burning in the Amazon Basin observed by
satellite, Environ. Res. Lett., 7, 024020,
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/7/2/024020, 2012.
Thornhill, G. D., Ryder, C. L., Highwood, E. J., Shaffrey, L. C., and Johnson, B. T.: The effect of South American biomass burning aerosol emissions on the regional climate, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 5321–5342, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5321-2018, 2018.
Twohy, C. H., Toohey, D. W., Levin, E. J. T., DeMott, P. J., Rainwater, B.,
Garofalo, L. A., Pothier, M. A., Farmer, D. K., Kreidenweis, S. M., Pokhrel,
R. P., Murphy, S. M., Reeves, J. M., Moore, K. A., and Fischer, E. V.:
Biomass Burning Smoke and Its Influence on Clouds Over the Western U. S.,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2021GL094224, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094224, 2021.
Vakkari, V., Kerminen, V.-M., Beukes, J. P., Tiitta, P., van Zyl, P. G.,
Josipovic, M., Venter, A. D., Jaars, K., Worsnop, D. R., Kulmala, M., and
Laakso, L.: Rapid changes in biomass burning aerosols by atmospheric
oxidation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 2644–2651,
https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL059396, 2014.
van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Giglio, L., van Leeuwen, T. T., Chen, Y., Rogers, B. M., Mu, M., van Marle, M. J. E., Morton, D. C., Collatz, G. J., Yokelson, R. J., and Kasibhatla, P. S.: Global fire emissions estimates during 1997–2016, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 9, 697–720, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-697-2017, 2017.
Wei, J., Li, Z., Peng, Y., and Sun, L.: MODIS Collection 6.1 aerosol optical
depth products over land and ocean: validation and comparison, Atmos.
Environ., 201, 428–440, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.12.004, 2019.
Wendisch, M., Poschl, U., Andreae, M. O., MacHado, L. A. T., Albrecht, R.,
Schlager, H., Rosenfeld, D., Martin, S. T., Abdelmonem, A., Afchine, A.,
Araujo, A. C., Artaxo, P., Aufmhoff, H., Barbosa, H. M. J., Borrmann, S.,
Braga, R., Buchholz, B., Cecchini, M. A., Costa, A., Curtius, J., Dollner,
M., Dorf, M., Dreiling, V., Ebert, V., Ehrlich, A., Ewald, F., Fisch, G.,
Fix, A., Frank, F., Futterer, D., Heckl, C., Heidelberg, F., Huneke, T.,
Jakel, E., Jarvinen, E., Jurkat, T., Kanter, S., Kastner, U., Kenntner, M.,
Kesselmeier, J., Klimach, T., Knecht, M., Kohl, R., Kolling, T., Kramer, M.,
Kruger, M., Krisna, T. C., Lavric, J. V., Longo, K., Mahnke, C., Manzi, A.
O., Mayer, B., Mertes, S., Minikin, A., Molleker, S., Munch, S., Nillius,
B., Pfeilsticker, K., Pohlker, C., Roiger, A., Rose, D., Rosenow, D., Sauer,
D., Schnaiter, M., Schneider, J., Schulz, C., De Souza, R. A. F., Spanu, A.,
Stock, P., Vila, D., Voigt, C., Walser, A., Walter, D., Weigel, R.,
Weinzierl, B., Werner, F., Yamasoe, M. A., Ziereis, H., Zinner, T., and
Zoger, M.: Acridicon-chuva campaign: Studying tropical deep convective
clouds and precipitation over amazonia using the New German research
aircraft HALO, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 97, 1885–1908, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00255.1, 2016.
White, B., Gryspeerdt, E., Stier, P., Morrison, H., Thompson, G., and Kipling, Z.: Uncertainty from the choice of microphysics scheme in convection-permitting models significantly exceeds aerosol effects, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 12145–12175, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-12145-2017, 2017.
Wu, L., Su, H., and Jiang, J. H.: Regional simulations of deep convection
and biomass burning over South America: 2. Biomass burning aerosol effects
on clouds and precipitation, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos.,
116, D17209, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016106, 2011.
Yoon, J.-H. and Zeng, N.: An Atlantic influence on Amazon rainfall, Clim.
Dynam., 34, 249–264, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0551-6, 2010.
Yu, H., Fu, R., Dickinson, R. E., Zhang, Y., Chen, M., and Wang, H.:
Interannual variability of smoke and warm cloud relationships in the Amazon
as inferred from MODIS retrievals, Remote Sens. Environ., 111,
435–449, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2007.04.003, 2007.
Zaveri, R. A., Wang, J., Fan, J., Zhang, Y., Shilling, J. E., Zelenyuk, A.,
Mei, F., Newsom, R., Pekour, M., Tomlinson, J., Comstock, J. M.,
Shrivastava, M., Fortner, E., Machado, L. A. T., Artaxo, P., and Martin, S.
T.: Rapid growth of anthropogenic organic nanoparticles greatly alters cloud
life cycle in the Amazon rainforest, Science Advances, 8, eabj0329,
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj0329, 2022.
Zhang, M., Zhang, L., He, Q., and Yuan, Y.: Evaluation of the MODIS
Collection 6.1 3 km aerosol optical depth product over China, Atmos.
Environ., 273, 118970, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.118970, 2022.
Zhang, R., Khalizov, A. F., Pagels, J., Zhang, D., Xue, H., and McMurry, P.
H.: Variability in morphology, hygroscopicity, and optical properties of
soot aerosols during atmospheric processing, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 10291–10296, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0804860105, 2008.
Zhang, Y., Fu, R., Yu, H., Dickinson, R. E., Juarez, R. N., Chin, M., and
Wang, H.: A regional climate model study of how biomass burning aerosol
impacts land-atmosphere interactions over the Amazon, J. Geophys.
Res., 113, D14S15, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007jd009449, 2008.
Zhang, Y., Fu, R., Yu, H., Qian, Y., Dickinson, R., Silva Dias, M. A. F., da
Silva Dias, P. L., and Fernandes, K.: Impact of biomass burning aerosol on
the monsoon circulation transition over Amazonia, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L10814, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL037180, 2009.
Zhang, Y., Fan, J., Logan, T., Li, Z., and Homeyer, C. R.: Wildfire Impact
on Environmental Thermodynamics and Severe Convective Storms, Geophys. Res. Lett., 46, 10082–10093, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084534, 2019.
Zhao, B., Wang, Y., Gu, Y., Liou, K.-N., Jiang, J. H., Fan, J., Liu, X.,
Huang, L., and Yung, Y. L.: Ice nucleation by aerosols from anthropogenic
pollution, Nat. Geosci., 12, 602–607, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0389-4, 2019.
Short summary
We provide robust evidence from multiple sources showing that smoke from fires in the Amazon rainforest significantly modifies the diurnal cycle of convection and cools the climate. Low to moderate amounts of smoke increase deep convective clouds and rain, whilst beyond a threshold amount, the smoke starts to suppress the convection and rain. We are currently at this threshold, suggesting increases in fires from agricultural practices or droughts will reduce cloudiness and rain over the region.
We provide robust evidence from multiple sources showing that smoke from fires in the Amazon...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint