Articles | Volume 24, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7983-2024
© Author(s) 2024. 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-24-7983-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Vertical structure of a springtime smoky and humid troposphere over the southeast Atlantic from aircraft and reanalysis
Kristina Pistone
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Moffett Field, CA, USA
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA
Eric M. Wilcox
Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, USA
Paquita Zuidema
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA
Marco Giordano
Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, USA
James Podolske
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA
Samuel E. LeBlanc
Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Moffett Field, CA, USA
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA
Meloë Kacenelenbogen
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Steven G. Howell
Dept. of Oceanography, University of Hawaii Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
Steffen Freitag
Dept. of Oceanography, University of Hawaii Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
now at: State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection in North Rhine-Westphalia (LANUV NRW), Recklinghausen, Germany
Related authors
Hiren T. Jethva, Omar Torres, Richard A. Ferrare, Sharon P. Burton, Anthony L. Cook, David B. Harper, Chris A. Hostetler, Jens Redemann, Vinay Kayetha, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Logan Mitchell, and Connor J. Flynn
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 2335–2366, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2335-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2335-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We introduce a novel synergy algorithm applied to ORALCES airborne measurements of above-cloud aerosol optical depth and UV–Vis satellite observations from OMI and MODIS to retrieve spectral aerosol single-scattering albedo of lofted layers of carbonaceous smoke aerosols over clouds. The development of the proposed aerosol–cloud algorithm implies a possible synergy of CALIOP and OMI–MODIS passive sensors to deduce a global product of AOD and SSA of absorbing aerosols above clouds.
Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Connor J. Flynn, Yohei Shinozuka, Sarah J. Doherty, Michael S. Diamond, Karla M. Longo, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Gregory R. Carmichael, Patricia Castellanos, Arlindo M. da Silva, Pablo E. Saide, Calvin Howes, Zhixin Xue, Marc Mallet, Ravi Govindaraju, Qiaoqiao Wang, Yafang Cheng, Yan Feng, Sharon P. Burton, Richard A. Ferrare, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Meloë S. Kacenelenbogen, Kristina Pistone, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Kerry G. Meyer, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, Adeyemi A. Adebiyi, Robert Wood, Paquita Zuidema, Sundar A. Christopher, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4283–4309, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4283-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4283-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Abundant aerosols are present above low-level liquid clouds over the southeastern Atlantic during late austral spring. The model simulation differences in the proportion of aerosol residing in the planetary boundary layer and in the free troposphere can greatly affect the regional aerosol radiative effects. This study examines the aerosol loading and fractional aerosol loading in the free troposphere among various models and evaluates them against measurements from the NASA ORACLES campaign.
Sabrina P. Cochrane, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Hong Chen, Peter Pilewskie, Scott Kittelman, Jens Redemann, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Michal Segal Rozenhaimer, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Yohei Shinozuka, Connor Flynn, Rich Ferrare, Sharon Burton, Chris Hostetler, Marc Mallet, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 61–77, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-61-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-61-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This work presents heating rates derived from aircraft observations from the 2016 and 2017 field campaigns of ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS). We separate the total heating rates into aerosol and gas (primarily water vapor) absorption and explore some of the co-variability of heating rate profiles and their primary drivers, leading to the development of a new concept: the heating rate efficiency (HRE; the heating rate per unit aerosol extinction).
Sarah J. Doherty, Pablo E. Saide, Paquita Zuidema, Yohei Shinozuka, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Hamish Gordon, Marc Mallet, Kerry Meyer, David Painemal, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, James R. Podolske, Sharon P. Burton, Richard A. Ferrare, Calvin Howes, Pierre Nabat, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Kristina Pistone, Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Robert Wood, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1–46, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Between July and October, biomass burning smoke is advected over the southeastern Atlantic Ocean, leading to climate forcing. Model calculations of forcing by this plume vary significantly in both magnitude and sign. This paper compares aerosol and cloud properties observed during three NASA ORACLES field campaigns to the same in four models. It quantifies modeled biases in properties key to aerosol direct radiative forcing and evaluates how these biases propagate to biases in forcing.
Konstantin Baibakov, Samuel LeBlanc, Keyvan Ranjbar, Norman T. O'Neill, Mengistu Wolde, Jens Redemann, Kristina Pistone, Shao-Meng Li, John Liggio, Katherine Hayden, Tak W. Chan, Michael J. Wheeler, Leonid Nichman, Connor Flynn, and Roy Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10671–10687, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We find that the airborne measurements of the vertical extinction due to aerosols (aerosol optical depth, AOD) obtained in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) can significantly exceed ground-based values. This can have an effect on estimating the AOSR radiative impact and is relevant to satellite validation based on ground-based measurements. We also show that the AOD can marginally increase as the plumes are being transported away from the source and the new particles are being formed.
Kristina Pistone, Paquita Zuidema, Robert Wood, Michael Diamond, Arlindo M. da Silva, Gonzalo Ferrada, Pablo E. Saide, Rei Ueyama, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, James Podolske, David Noone, Ryan Bennett, Eric Stith, Gregory Carmichael, Jens Redemann, Connor Flynn, Samuel LeBlanc, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, and Yohei Shinozuka
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9643–9668, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Using aircraft-based measurements off the Atlantic coast of Africa, we found the springtime smoke plume was strongly correlated with the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (more smoke indicated more humidity). We see the same general feature in satellite-assimilated and free-running models. Our analysis suggests this relationship is not caused by the burning but originates due to coincident continental meteorology plus fires. This air is transported over the ocean without further mixing.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Sabrina P. Cochrane, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Hong Chen, Peter Pilewskie, Scott Kittelman, Jens Redemann, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Connor Flynn, Amie Dobracki, Paquita Zuidema, Steven Howell, Steffen Freitag, and Sarah Doherty
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 567–593, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-567-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-567-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Based on observations from the 2016 and 2017 field campaigns of ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS), this work establishes an observationally driven link from mid-visible aerosol optical depth (AOD) and other scene parameters to broadband shortwave irradiance (and by extension the direct aerosol radiative effect, DARE). The majority of the case-to-case DARE variability within the ORACLES dataset is attributable to the dependence on AOD and scene albedo.
Yohei Shinozuka, Pablo E. Saide, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Sharon P. Burton, Richard Ferrare, Sarah J. Doherty, Hamish Gordon, Karla Longo, Marc Mallet, Yan Feng, Qiaoqiao Wang, Yafang Cheng, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Steven G. Howell, Samuel LeBlanc, Connor Flynn, Michal Segal-Rosenhaimer, Kristina Pistone, James R. Podolske, Eric J. Stith, Joseph Ryan Bennett, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Ravi Govindaraju, Ruby Leung, Yang Zhang, Leonhard Pfister, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Jens Redemann, Robert Wood, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11491–11526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In the southeast Atlantic, well-defined smoke plumes from Africa advect over marine boundary layer cloud decks; both are most extensive around September, when most of the smoke resides in the free troposphere. A framework is put forth for evaluating the performance of a range of global and regional atmospheric composition models against observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) airborne mission in September 2016.
Yohei Shinozuka, Meloë S. Kacenelenbogen, Sharon P. Burton, Steven G. Howell, Paquita Zuidema, Richard A. Ferrare, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Stephen Broccardo, Jens Redemann, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Sabrina P. Cochrane, Marta Fenn, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, Michal Segal-Rosenheimer, and Connor J. Flynn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11275–11285, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11275-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11275-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
To help satellite retrieval of aerosols and studies of their radiative effects, we demonstrate that daytime aerosol optical depth over low-level clouds is similar to that in neighboring clear skies at the same heights. Based on recent airborne lidar and sun photometer observations above the southeast Atlantic, the mean AOD difference at 532 nm is between 0 and -0.01, when comparing the cloudy and clear sides of cloud edges, with each up to 20 km wide.
Samuel E. LeBlanc, Jens Redemann, Connor Flynn, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal-Rosenheimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Stephen Dunagan, Robert P. Dahlgren, Kerry Meyer, James Podolske, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Jennifer Small-Griswold, Brent Holben, Michael Diamond, Robert Wood, Paola Formenti, Stuart Piketh, Gillian Maggs-Kölling, Monja Gerber, and Andreas Namwoonde
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1565–1590, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1565-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1565-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The southeast Atlantic during August–October experiences layers of smoke from biomass burning over marine stratocumulus clouds. Here we present the light attenuation of the smoke and its dependence in the spatial, vertical, and spectral domain through direct measurements from an airborne platform during September 2016. From our observations of this climatically important smoke, we found an average aerosol optical depth of 0.32 at 500 nm, slightly lower than comparative satellite measurements.
Sabrina P. Cochrane, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Hong Chen, Peter Pilewskie, Scott Kittelman, Jens Redemann, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Connor Flynn, Steven Platnick, Kerry Meyer, Rich Ferrare, Sharon Burton, Chris Hostetler, Steven Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, and Sarah Doherty
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 6505–6528, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-6505-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-6505-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
For two cases from the NASA ORACLES experiments, we retrieve aerosol and cloud properties and calculate a direct aerosol radiative effect (DARE). We investigate the relationship between DARE and the cloud albedo by specifying the albedo for which DARE transitions from a cooling to warming radiative effect. Our new aerosol retrieval algorithm is successful despite complexities associated with scenes that contain aerosols above clouds and decreases the uncertainty on retrieved aerosol parameters.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Andrew M. Sayer, N. Christina Hsu, Jaehwa Lee, Woogyung V. Kim, Sharon Burton, Marta A. Fenn, Richard A. Ferrare, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Jens Redemann, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, and Si-Chee Tsay
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 3595–3627, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3595-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3595-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols are small particles in the atmosphere such as dust or smoke. They are routinely monitored by satellites due to their importance for climate and air quality. However aerosols above clouds are more difficult to monitor. This study describes an improvement to a technique to monitor light-absorbing aerosols above clouds from four Earth-orbiting satellite instruments. The improved method is evaluated using data from the ORACLES field campaign, which measured these aerosols from aircraft.
Kristina Pistone, Puppala S. Praveen, Rick M. Thomas, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Eric M. Wilcox, and Frida A.-M. Bender
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 5203–5227, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5203-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5203-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
A recent field campaign (CARDEX) in the northern Indian Ocean concurrently measured cloud and aerosol properties and atmospheric structure and dynamics from a ground-based observatory and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These new measurements show a correlation between highly polluted conditions and increased cloud water content, concurrent with higher atmospheric temperature and humidity. Such correlations may be of interest in future studies of the effects of pollution on cloud properties.
Florian Tornow, Ann Fridlind, George Tselioudis, Brian Cairns, Andrew Ackerman, Seethala Chellappan, David Painemal, Paquita Zuidema, Christiane Voigt, Simon Kirschler, and Armin Sorooshian
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3462, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3462, 2024
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Kira Zeider, Kayla McCauley, Sanja Dmitrovic, Leong Wai Siu, Yonghoon Choi, Ewan C. Crosbie, Joshua P. DiGangi, Glenn S. Diskin, Simon Kirschler, John B. Nowak, Michael A. Shook, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Christiane Voigt, Edward L. Winstead, Luke D. Ziemba, Paquita Zuidema, and Armin Sorooshian
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2743, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2743, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In-situ aircraft data collected over the northwest Atlantic Ocean are utilized to compare aerosol conditions and turbulence between near-surface and below cloud base altitudes for different regimes of coupling strength between those two levels, along with how cloud microphysical properties vary across those regimes. Stronger coupling yields more homogenous aerosol structure vertically along with higher cloud drop concentrations and sea salt influence in clouds.
Cynthia H. Whaley, Tim Butler, Jose A. Adame, Rupal Ambulkar, Stephen R. Arnold, Rebecca R. Buchholz, Benjamin Gaubert, Douglas S. Hamilton, Min Huang, Hayley Hung, Johannes W. Kaiser, Jacek W. Kaminski, Christophe Knote, Gerbrand Koren, Jean-Luc Kouassi, Meiyun Lin, Tianjia Liu, Jianmin Ma, Kasemsan Manomaiphiboon, Elisa Bergas Masso, Jessica L. McCarty, Mariano Mertens, Mark Parrington, Helene Peiro, Pallavi Saxena, Saurabh Sonwani, Vanisa Surapipith, Damaris Tan, Wenfu Tang, Veerachai Tanpipat, Kostas Tsigaridis, Christine Wiedinmyer, Oliver Wild, Yuanyu Xie, and Paquita Zuidema
Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-126, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-126, 2024
Preprint under review for GMD
Short summary
Short summary
The multi-model experiment design of the HTAP3 Fires project takes a multi-pollutant approach to improving our understanding of transboundary transport of wildland fire and agricultural burning emissions and their impacts. The experiments are designed with the goal of answering science policy questions related to fires. The options for the multi-model approach, including inputs, outputs, and model set up are discussed, and the official recommendations for the project are presented.
Amie Dobracki, Ernie Lewis, Arthur Sedlacek III, Tyler Tatro, Maria Zawadowicz, and Paquita Zuidema
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1347, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1347, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Biomass-burning aerosol is commonly present in the marine boundary layer of the southeast Atlantic Ocean between June and October. Our research indicates that burning conditions, aerosol transport pathways, and prolonged oxidation processes, both heterogeneous and aqueous-phase determine the chemical, microphysical, and optical properties of the boundary layer aerosol. Notably, we find that the aerosol optical properties can be estimated from the chemical properties alone.
Hiren T. Jethva, Omar Torres, Richard A. Ferrare, Sharon P. Burton, Anthony L. Cook, David B. Harper, Chris A. Hostetler, Jens Redemann, Vinay Kayetha, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Logan Mitchell, and Connor J. Flynn
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 2335–2366, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2335-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2335-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We introduce a novel synergy algorithm applied to ORALCES airborne measurements of above-cloud aerosol optical depth and UV–Vis satellite observations from OMI and MODIS to retrieve spectral aerosol single-scattering albedo of lofted layers of carbonaceous smoke aerosols over clouds. The development of the proposed aerosol–cloud algorithm implies a possible synergy of CALIOP and OMI–MODIS passive sensors to deduce a global product of AOD and SSA of absorbing aerosols above clouds.
Farnaz Hosseinpour and Eric M. Wilcox
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 707–724, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-707-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-707-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study shows mechanistic relationships between the radiative effect of dust aerosols in the Saharan air layer and the kinetic energy of the African easterly waves across the tropical Atlantic Ocean using 22 years of daily satellite observations and reanalysis data based on satellite assimilation. Our findings suggest that dust aerosols not merely are transported by these waves but also contribute to the growth of waves through the enhancement of diabatic heating induced by dust.
Eric M. Wilcox, Tianle Yuan, and Hua Song
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 5387–5401, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5387-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5387-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
A new database is constructed from over 20 years of satellite records that comprises millions of deep convective clouds and spans the global tropics and subtropics. The database is a collection of clouds ranging from isolated cells to giant cloud systems. The cloud database provides a means of empirically studying the factors that determine the spatial structure and coverage of convective cloud systems, which are strongly related to the overall radiative forcing by cloud systems.
Calvin Howes, Pablo E. Saide, Hugh Coe, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Jim M. Haywood, Steven G. Howell, Siddhant Gupta, Janek Uin, Mary Kacarab, Chongai Kuang, L. Ruby Leung, Athanasios Nenes, Greg M. McFarquhar, James Podolske, Jens Redemann, Arthur J. Sedlacek, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Jenny P. S. Wong, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, Yang Zhang, Jianhao Zhang, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13911–13940, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13911-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13911-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
To better understand smoke properties and its interactions with clouds, we compare the WRF-CAM5 model with observations from ORACLES, CLARIFY, and LASIC field campaigns in the southeastern Atlantic in August 2017. The model transports and mixes smoke well but does not fully capture some important processes. These include smoke chemical and physical aging over 4–12 days, smoke removal by rain, sulfate particle formation, aerosol activation into cloud droplets, and boundary layer turbulence.
Lu Zhang, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Haochi Che, Caroline Dang, Junying Sun, Ye Kuang, Paola Formenti, and Steven Howell
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2199, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2199, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Using airborne measurements over the South-East Atlantic, our study explored how aerosols—tiny atmospheric particles—interact with moisture over the ocean, especially during the biomass burning season. We noticed unique patterns in their behavior at different altitudes and introduced a predictive model for this moisture interaction. Our results aid our understanding of aerosol-moisture interactions and benefit the research of aerosol radiative effect in this climatically significant region.
Armin Sorooshian, Mikhail D. Alexandrov, Adam D. Bell, Ryan Bennett, Grace Betito, Sharon P. Burton, Megan E. Buzanowicz, Brian Cairns, Eduard V. Chemyakin, Gao Chen, Yonghoon Choi, Brian L. Collister, Anthony L. Cook, Andrea F. Corral, Ewan C. Crosbie, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Joshua P. DiGangi, Glenn S. Diskin, Sanja Dmitrovic, Eva-Lou Edwards, Marta A. Fenn, Richard A. Ferrare, David van Gilst, Johnathan W. Hair, David B. Harper, Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario, Chris A. Hostetler, Nathan Jester, Michael Jones, Simon Kirschler, Mary M. Kleb, John M. Kusterer, Sean Leavor, Joseph W. Lee, Hongyu Liu, Kayla McCauley, Richard H. Moore, Joseph Nied, Anthony Notari, John B. Nowak, David Painemal, Kasey E. Phillips, Claire E. Robinson, Amy Jo Scarino, Joseph S. Schlosser, Shane T. Seaman, Chellappan Seethala, Taylor J. Shingler, Michael A. Shook, Kenneth A. Sinclair, William L. Smith Jr., Douglas A. Spangenberg, Snorre A. Stamnes, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Christiane Voigt, Holger Vömel, Andrzej P. Wasilewski, Hailong Wang, Edward L. Winstead, Kira Zeider, Xubin Zeng, Bo Zhang, Luke D. Ziemba, and Paquita Zuidema
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 3419–3472, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-3419-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-3419-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) produced a unique dataset for research into aerosol–cloud–meteorology interactions. HU-25 Falcon and King Air aircraft conducted systematic and spatially coordinated flights over the northwest Atlantic Ocean. This paper describes the ACTIVATE flight strategy, instrument and complementary dataset products, data access and usage details, and data application notes.
Harrison A. Parker, Joshua L. Laughner, Geoffrey C. Toon, Debra Wunch, Coleen M. Roehl, Laura T. Iraci, James R. Podolske, Kathryn McKain, Bianca C. Baier, and Paul O. Wennberg
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2601–2625, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2601-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2601-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We describe a retrieval algorithm for determining limited information about the vertical distribution of carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from total column observations from ground-based observations. Our retrieved partial column values compare well with integrated in situ data. The average error for our retrieval is 1.51 ppb (~ 2 %) for CO and 5.09 ppm (~ 1.25 %) for CO2. We anticipate that this approach will find broad application for use in carbon cycle science.
Amie Dobracki, Paquita Zuidema, Steven G. Howell, Pablo Saide, Steffen Freitag, Allison C. Aiken, Sharon P. Burton, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Jens Redemann, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4775–4799, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4775-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4775-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Southern Africa produces approximately one-third of the world’s carbon from fires. The thick smoke layer can flow westward, interacting with the southeastern Atlantic cloud deck. The net radiative impact can alter regional circulation patterns, impacting rainfall over Africa. We find that the smoke is highly absorbing of sunlight, mostly because it contains more black carbon than smoke over the Northern Hemisphere.
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
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2037–2054, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2037-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2037-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Connor J. Flynn, Yohei Shinozuka, Sarah J. Doherty, Michael S. Diamond, Karla M. Longo, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Gregory R. Carmichael, Patricia Castellanos, Arlindo M. da Silva, Pablo E. Saide, Calvin Howes, Zhixin Xue, Marc Mallet, Ravi Govindaraju, Qiaoqiao Wang, Yafang Cheng, Yan Feng, Sharon P. Burton, Richard A. Ferrare, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Meloë S. Kacenelenbogen, Kristina Pistone, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Kerry G. Meyer, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, Adeyemi A. Adebiyi, Robert Wood, Paquita Zuidema, Sundar A. Christopher, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4283–4309, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4283-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4283-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Abundant aerosols are present above low-level liquid clouds over the southeastern Atlantic during late austral spring. The model simulation differences in the proportion of aerosol residing in the planetary boundary layer and in the free troposphere can greatly affect the regional aerosol radiative effects. This study examines the aerosol loading and fractional aerosol loading in the free troposphere among various models and evaluates them against measurements from the NASA ORACLES campaign.
Kai Krause, Folkard Wittrock, Andreas Richter, Dieter Busch, Anton Bergen, John P. Burrows, Steffen Freitag, and Olesia Halbherr
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 1767–1787, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1767-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1767-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Inland shipping is an important source of nitrogen oxides (NOx). The amount of emitted NOx depends on the characteristics of the individual vessels and the traffic density. Ship emissions are often characterised by the amount of emitted NOx per unit of burnt fuel, and further knowledge about fuel consumption is needed to quantify the total emissions caused by ship traffic. In this study, a new approach to derive absolute emission rates (in g s−1) from onshore measurements is presented.
Haley M. Royer, Mira L. Pöhlker, Ovid Krüger, Edmund Blades, Peter Sealy, Nurun Nahar Lata, Zezhen Cheng, Swarup China, Andrew P. Ault, Patricia K. Quinn, Paquita Zuidema, Christopher Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Meinrat Andreae, and Cassandra J. Gaston
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 981–998, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-981-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-981-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents atmospheric particle chemical composition and measurements of aerosol water uptake properties collected at Ragged Point, Barbados, during the winter of 2020. The result of this study indicates the importance of small African smoke particles for cloud droplet formation in the tropical North Atlantic and highlights the large spatial and temporal pervasiveness of smoke over the Atlantic Ocean.
Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, Rei Ueyama, Paquita Zuidema, Robert Wood, Ian Chang, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 14209–14241, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-14209-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-14209-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The variability in the meteorological fields during each deployment is highly modulated at a daily to synoptic timescale. This paper, along with part 1, the climatological overview paper, provides a meteorological context for interpreting the airborne measurements gathered during the three ORACLES deployments. This study supports related studies focusing on the detailed investigation of the processes controlling stratocumulus decks, aerosol lifting, transport, and their interactions.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Michael S. Diamond, Pablo E. Saide, Paquita Zuidema, Andrew S. Ackerman, Sarah J. Doherty, Ann M. Fridlind, Hamish Gordon, Calvin Howes, Jan Kazil, Takanobu Yamaguchi, Jianhao Zhang, Graham Feingold, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12113–12151, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12113-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12113-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Smoke from southern Africa blankets the southeast Atlantic from June-October, overlying a major transition region between overcast and scattered clouds. The smoke affects Earth's radiation budget by absorbing sunlight and changing cloud properties. We investigate these effects in regional climate and large eddy simulation models based on international field campaigns. We find that large-scale circulation changes more strongly affect cloud transitions than smoke microphysical effects in our case.
Samuel E. LeBlanc, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Jens Redemann, Connor Flynn, Roy R. Johnson, Stephen E. Dunagan, Robert Dahlgren, Jhoon Kim, Myungje Choi, Arlindo da Silva, Patricia Castellanos, Qian Tan, Luke Ziemba, Kenneth Lee Thornhill, and Meloë Kacenelenbogen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 11275–11304, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11275-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11275-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Airborne observations of atmospheric particles and pollution over Korea during a field campaign in May–June 2016 showed that the smallest atmospheric particles are present in the lowest 2 km of the atmosphere. The aerosol size is more spatially variable than optical thickness. We show this with remote sensing (4STAR), in situ (LARGE) observations, satellite measurements (GOCI), and modeled properties (MERRA-2), and it is contrary to the current understanding.
Caroline Dang, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Haochi Che, Lu Zhang, Paola Formenti, Jonathan Taylor, Amie Dobracki, Sara Purdue, Pui-Shan Wong, Athanasios Nenes, Arthur Sedlacek III, Hugh Coe, Jens Redemann, Paquita Zuidema, Steven Howell, and James Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9389–9412, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9389-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9389-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Transmission electron microscopy was used to analyze aged African smoke particles and how the smoke interacts with the marine atmosphere. We found that the volatility of organic aerosol increases with biomass burning plume age, that black carbon is often mixed with potassium salts and that the marine atmosphere can incorporate Na and Cl into smoke particles. Marine salts are more processed when mixed with smoke plumes, and there are interesting Cl-rich yet Na-absent marine particles.
Lu Zhang, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Haochi Che, Caroline Dang, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Ernie R. Lewis, Amie Dobracki, Jenny P. S. Wong, Paola Formenti, Steven G. Howell, and Athanasios Nenes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9199–9213, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9199-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9199-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Widespread biomass burning (BB) events occur annually in Africa and contribute ~ 1 / 3 of global BB emissions, which contain a large family of light-absorbing organics, known as brown carbon (BrC), whose absorption of incident radiation is difficult to estimate, leading to large uncertainties in the global radiative forcing estimation. This study quantifies the BrC absorption of aged BB particles and highlights the potential presence of absorbing iron oxides in this climatically important region.
Haochi Che, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Lu Zhang, Caroline Dang, Paquita Zuidema, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Xiaoye Zhang, and Connor Flynn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8767–8785, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8767-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8767-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
A 17-month in situ study on Ascension Island found low single-scattering albedo and strong absorption enhancement of the marine boundary layer aerosols during biomass burnings on the African continent, along with apparent patterns of regular monthly variability. We further discuss the characteristics and drivers behind these changes and find that biomass burning conditions in Africa may be the main factor influencing the optical properties of marine boundary aerosols.
Glenn M. Wolfe, Thomas F. Hanisco, Heather L. Arkinson, Donald R. Blake, Armin Wisthaler, Tomas Mikoviny, Thomas B. Ryerson, Ilana Pollack, Jeff Peischl, Paul O. Wennberg, John D. Crounse, Jason M. St. Clair, Alex Teng, L. Gregory Huey, Xiaoxi Liu, Alan Fried, Petter Weibring, Dirk Richter, James Walega, Samuel R. Hall, Kirk Ullmann, Jose L. Jimenez, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, T. Paul Bui, Glenn Diskin, James R. Podolske, Glen Sachse, and Ronald C. Cohen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 4253–4275, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-4253-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-4253-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Smoke plumes are chemically complex. This work combines airborne observations of smoke plume composition with a photochemical model to probe the production of ozone and the fate of reactive gases in the outflow of a large wildfire. Model–measurement comparisons illustrate how uncertain emissions and chemical processes propagate into simulated chemical evolution. Results provide insight into how this system responds to perturbations, which can help guide future observation and modeling efforts.
Meloë S. F. Kacenelenbogen, Qian Tan, Sharon P. Burton, Otto P. Hasekamp, Karl D. Froyd, Yohei Shinozuka, Andreas J. Beyersdorf, Luke Ziemba, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Jack E. Dibb, Taylor Shingler, Armin Sorooshian, Reed W. Espinosa, Vanderlei Martins, Jose L. Jimenez, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Joshua P. Schwarz, Matthew S. Johnson, Jens Redemann, and Gregory L. Schuster
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 3713–3742, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3713-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3713-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The impact of aerosols on Earth's radiation budget and human health is important and strongly depends on their composition. One desire of our scientific community is to derive the composition of the aerosol from satellite sensors. However, satellites observe aerosol optical properties (and not aerosol composition) based on remote sensing instrumentation. This study assesses how much aerosol optical properties can tell us about aerosol composition.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Sabrina P. Cochrane, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Hong Chen, Peter Pilewskie, Scott Kittelman, Jens Redemann, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Michal Segal Rozenhaimer, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Yohei Shinozuka, Connor Flynn, Rich Ferrare, Sharon Burton, Chris Hostetler, Marc Mallet, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 61–77, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-61-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-61-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This work presents heating rates derived from aircraft observations from the 2016 and 2017 field campaigns of ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS). We separate the total heating rates into aerosol and gas (primarily water vapor) absorption and explore some of the co-variability of heating rate profiles and their primary drivers, leading to the development of a new concept: the heating rate efficiency (HRE; the heating rate per unit aerosol extinction).
Sarah J. Doherty, Pablo E. Saide, Paquita Zuidema, Yohei Shinozuka, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Hamish Gordon, Marc Mallet, Kerry Meyer, David Painemal, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, James R. Podolske, Sharon P. Burton, Richard A. Ferrare, Calvin Howes, Pierre Nabat, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Kristina Pistone, Ian Chang, Lan Gao, Robert Wood, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1–46, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Between July and October, biomass burning smoke is advected over the southeastern Atlantic Ocean, leading to climate forcing. Model calculations of forcing by this plume vary significantly in both magnitude and sign. This paper compares aerosol and cloud properties observed during three NASA ORACLES field campaigns to the same in four models. It quantifies modeled biases in properties key to aerosol direct radiative forcing and evaluates how these biases propagate to biases in forcing.
Amie Dobracki, Paquita Zuidema, Steve Howell, Pablo Saide, Steffen Freitag, Allison C. Aiken, Sharon P. Burton, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Jens Redemann, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-1081, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-1081, 2022
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
The global maximum of shortwave-absorbing aerosol above cloud occurs above the southeast Atlantic, where the biomass-burning aerosol provides a distinct aerosol radiative warming of regional climate. The smoke aerosols are unusually highly absorbing of sunlight. This study seeks to understand the cause. We conclude the aerosol is already strongly absorbing at the fire emission source, but that chemical aging, through encouraging a net loss of organic aerosol, also contributes.
Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, Nikolai Smirnow, and Arthur J. Sedlacek III
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 7381–7404, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7381-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7381-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Small particles in the air have important effects on visibility, clouds, and human health. For the ORACLES project we got a new particle sizing instrument that is fast, works over the most important particle sizes, and avoids some of the issues that plague other optical particle sizers. Unfortunately it sees some particles much smaller than they really are, likely because they heat up and evaporate. We show a crude correction and speculate why these particles heat up much more than expected.
Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, Rei Ueyama, Paquita Zuidema, Robert Wood, Ian Chang, and Jens Redemann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16689–16707, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16689-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16689-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Part 1 of the meteorological overview paper highlights the anomalous meteorological characteristics during the ORACLES deployment compared to the climatological mean at monthly timescales. The upper-level wave disturbance and the associated anomalous circulation explain the weakening of AEJ-S through the reduction of the strength of the heat low over the land during August 2017. This may also help explain the anomalously low aerosol optical depth observed in the August 2017 ORACLES deployment.
Raphaela Vogel, Heike Konow, Hauke Schulz, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16609–16630, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16609-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16609-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The shallow cumulus clouds that populate the trade-wind regions can produce substantial amounts of rain. Before reaching the surface, part of the rain can evaporate and form pools of cold air that spread at the surface as density currents. We use 10 years of data from Barbados to show that such cold pools occur on 3 out of 4 d, that cold-pool periods are 90 % cloudier relative to the average winter conditions, and that they are connected to specific patterns of mesoscale cloud organization.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Zixia Liu, Martin Osborne, Karen Anderson, Jamie D. Shutler, Andy Wilson, Justin Langridge, Steve H. L. Yim, Hugh Coe, Suresh Babu, Sreedharan K. Satheesh, Paquita Zuidema, Tao Huang, Jack C. H. Cheng, and James Haywood
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 6101–6118, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6101-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6101-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This paper first validates the performance of an advanced aerosol observation instrument POPS against a reference instrument and examines any biases introduced by operating it on a quadcopter drone. The results show the POPS performs relatively well on the ground. The impact of the UAV rotors on the POPS is small at low wind speeds, but when operating under higher wind speeds, larger discrepancies occur. It appears that the POPS measures sub-micron aerosol particles more accurately on the UAV.
Bjorn Stevens, Sandrine Bony, David Farrell, Felix Ament, Alan Blyth, Christopher Fairall, Johannes Karstensen, Patricia K. Quinn, Sabrina Speich, Claudia Acquistapace, Franziska Aemisegger, Anna Lea Albright, Hugo Bellenger, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Kathy-Ann Caesar, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Gijs de Boer, Julien Delanoë, Leif Denby, Florian Ewald, Benjamin Fildier, Marvin Forde, Geet George, Silke Gross, Martin Hagen, Andrea Hausold, Karen J. Heywood, Lutz Hirsch, Marek Jacob, Friedhelm Jansen, Stefan Kinne, Daniel Klocke, Tobias Kölling, Heike Konow, Marie Lothon, Wiebke Mohr, Ann Kristin Naumann, Louise Nuijens, Léa Olivier, Robert Pincus, Mira Pöhlker, Gilles Reverdin, Gregory Roberts, Sabrina Schnitt, Hauke Schulz, A. Pier Siebesma, Claudia Christine Stephan, Peter Sullivan, Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer, Jessica Vial, Raphaela Vogel, Paquita Zuidema, Nicola Alexander, Lyndon Alves, Sophian Arixi, Hamish Asmath, Gholamhossein Bagheri, Katharina Baier, Adriana Bailey, Dariusz Baranowski, Alexandre Baron, Sébastien Barrau, Paul A. Barrett, Frédéric Batier, Andreas Behrendt, Arne Bendinger, Florent Beucher, Sebastien Bigorre, Edmund Blades, Peter Blossey, Olivier Bock, Steven Böing, Pierre Bosser, Denis Bourras, Pascale Bouruet-Aubertot, Keith Bower, Pierre Branellec, Hubert Branger, Michal Brennek, Alan Brewer, Pierre-Etienne Brilouet, Björn Brügmann, Stefan A. Buehler, Elmo Burke, Ralph Burton, Radiance Calmer, Jean-Christophe Canonici, Xavier Carton, Gregory Cato Jr., Jude Andre Charles, Patrick Chazette, Yanxu Chen, Michal T. Chilinski, Thomas Choularton, Patrick Chuang, Shamal Clarke, Hugh Coe, Céline Cornet, Pierre Coutris, Fleur Couvreux, Susanne Crewell, Timothy Cronin, Zhiqiang Cui, Yannis Cuypers, Alton Daley, Gillian M. Damerell, Thibaut Dauhut, Hartwig Deneke, Jean-Philippe Desbios, Steffen Dörner, Sebastian Donner, Vincent Douet, Kyla Drushka, Marina Dütsch, André Ehrlich, Kerry Emanuel, Alexandros Emmanouilidis, Jean-Claude Etienne, Sheryl Etienne-Leblanc, Ghislain Faure, Graham Feingold, Luca Ferrero, Andreas Fix, Cyrille Flamant, Piotr Jacek Flatau, Gregory R. Foltz, Linda Forster, Iulian Furtuna, Alan Gadian, Joseph Galewsky, Martin Gallagher, Peter Gallimore, Cassandra Gaston, Chelle Gentemann, Nicolas Geyskens, Andreas Giez, John Gollop, Isabelle Gouirand, Christophe Gourbeyre, Dörte de Graaf, Geiske E. de Groot, Robert Grosz, Johannes Güttler, Manuel Gutleben, Kashawn Hall, George Harris, Kevin C. Helfer, Dean Henze, Calvert Herbert, Bruna Holanda, Antonio Ibanez-Landeta, Janet Intrieri, Suneil Iyer, Fabrice Julien, Heike Kalesse, Jan Kazil, Alexander Kellman, Abiel T. Kidane, Ulrike Kirchner, Marcus Klingebiel, Mareike Körner, Leslie Ann Kremper, Jan Kretzschmar, Ovid Krüger, Wojciech Kumala, Armin Kurz, Pierre L'Hégaret, Matthieu Labaste, Tom Lachlan-Cope, Arlene Laing, Peter Landschützer, Theresa Lang, Diego Lange, Ingo Lange, Clément Laplace, Gauke Lavik, Rémi Laxenaire, Caroline Le Bihan, Mason Leandro, Nathalie Lefevre, Marius Lena, Donald Lenschow, Qiang Li, Gary Lloyd, Sebastian Los, Niccolò Losi, Oscar Lovell, Christopher Luneau, Przemyslaw Makuch, Szymon Malinowski, Gaston Manta, Eleni Marinou, Nicholas Marsden, Sebastien Masson, Nicolas Maury, Bernhard Mayer, Margarette Mayers-Als, Christophe Mazel, Wayne McGeary, James C. McWilliams, Mario Mech, Melina Mehlmann, Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Theresa Mieslinger, Andreas Minikin, Peter Minnett, Gregor Möller, Yanmichel Morfa Avalos, Caroline Muller, Ionela Musat, Anna Napoli, Almuth Neuberger, Christophe Noisel, David Noone, Freja Nordsiek, Jakub L. Nowak, Lothar Oswald, Douglas J. Parker, Carolyn Peck, Renaud Person, Miriam Philippi, Albert Plueddemann, Christopher Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Ulrich Pöschl, Lawrence Pologne, Michał Posyniak, Marc Prange, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Jule Radtke, Karim Ramage, Jens Reimann, Lionel Renault, Klaus Reus, Ashford Reyes, Joachim Ribbe, Maximilian Ringel, Markus Ritschel, Cesar B. Rocha, Nicolas Rochetin, Johannes Röttenbacher, Callum Rollo, Haley Royer, Pauline Sadoulet, Leo Saffin, Sanola Sandiford, Irina Sandu, Michael Schäfer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Oliver Schlenczek, Jerome Schmidt, Marcel Schröder, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Andrea Sealy, Christoph J. Senff, Ilya Serikov, Samkeyat Shohan, Elizabeth Siddle, Alexander Smirnov, Florian Späth, Branden Spooner, M. Katharina Stolla, Wojciech Szkółka, Simon P. de Szoeke, Stéphane Tarot, Eleni Tetoni, Elizabeth Thompson, Jim Thomson, Lorenzo Tomassini, Julien Totems, Alma Anna Ubele, Leonie Villiger, Jan von Arx, Thomas Wagner, Andi Walther, Ben Webber, Manfred Wendisch, Shanice Whitehall, Anton Wiltshire, Allison A. Wing, Martin Wirth, Jonathan Wiskandt, Kevin Wolf, Ludwig Worbes, Ethan Wright, Volker Wulfmeyer, Shanea Young, Chidong Zhang, Dongxiao Zhang, Florian Ziemen, Tobias Zinner, and Martin Zöger
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4067–4119, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The EUREC4A field campaign, designed to test hypothesized mechanisms by which clouds respond to warming and benchmark next-generation Earth-system models, is presented. EUREC4A comprised roughly 5 weeks of measurements in the downstream winter trades of the North Atlantic – eastward and southeastward of Barbados. It was the first campaign that attempted to characterize the full range of processes and scales influencing trade wind clouds.
Jianhao Zhang and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 11179–11199, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11179-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11179-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The subtropical Atlantic hosts one of the planet's largest marine low cloud decks and interacts with biomass burning aerosol from approximately July through October. This study clarifies how the monthly evolution in meteorology and the biomass burning aerosol vertical structure affects the seasonal cycle in its low cloud fraction, such that the July–October evolution in low cloud cover and morphology are reinforced, when compared to scenarios with less aerosol present.
Konstantin Baibakov, Samuel LeBlanc, Keyvan Ranjbar, Norman T. O'Neill, Mengistu Wolde, Jens Redemann, Kristina Pistone, Shao-Meng Li, John Liggio, Katherine Hayden, Tak W. Chan, Michael J. Wheeler, Leonid Nichman, Connor Flynn, and Roy Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10671–10687, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We find that the airborne measurements of the vertical extinction due to aerosols (aerosol optical depth, AOD) obtained in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) can significantly exceed ground-based values. This can have an effect on estimating the AOSR radiative impact and is relevant to satellite validation based on ground-based measurements. We also show that the AOD can marginally increase as the plumes are being transported away from the source and the new particles are being formed.
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
Short summary
Short summary
This study investigates the seasonal cycle of cloud drop number concentration (Nd) over the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNAO) using multiple datasets. Reasons for the puzzling discrepancy between the seasonal cycles of Nd and aerosol concentration were identified. Results indicate that Nd is highest in winter (when aerosol proxy values are often lowest) due to conditions both linked to cold-air outbreaks and that promote greater droplet activation.
Robert Pincus, Chris W. Fairall, Adriana Bailey, Haonan Chen, Patrick Y. Chuang, Gijs de Boer, Graham Feingold, Dean Henze, Quinn T. Kalen, Jan Kazil, Mason Leandro, Ashley Lundry, Ken Moran, Dana A. Naeher, David Noone, Akshar J. Patel, Sergio Pezoa, Ivan PopStefanija, Elizabeth J. Thompson, James Warnecke, and Paquita Zuidema
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 3281–3296, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-3281-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-3281-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This paper describes observations taken from a research aircraft during a field experiment in the western Atlantic Ocean during January and February 2020. The plane made 11 flights, most 8-9 h long, and measured the properties of the atmosphere and ocean with a combination of direct measurements, sensors falling from the plane to profile the atmosphere and ocean, and remote sensing measurements of clouds and the ocean surface.
Kristina Pistone, Paquita Zuidema, Robert Wood, Michael Diamond, Arlindo M. da Silva, Gonzalo Ferrada, Pablo E. Saide, Rei Ueyama, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, James Podolske, David Noone, Ryan Bennett, Eric Stith, Gregory Carmichael, Jens Redemann, Connor Flynn, Samuel LeBlanc, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, and Yohei Shinozuka
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9643–9668, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Using aircraft-based measurements off the Atlantic coast of Africa, we found the springtime smoke plume was strongly correlated with the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (more smoke indicated more humidity). We see the same general feature in satellite-assimilated and free-running models. Our analysis suggests this relationship is not caused by the burning but originates due to coincident continental meteorology plus fires. This air is transported over the ocean without further mixing.
Stefan Noël, Maximilian Reuter, Michael Buchwitz, Jakob Borchardt, Michael Hilker, Heinrich Bovensmann, John P. Burrows, Antonio Di Noia, Hiroshi Suto, Yukio Yoshida, Matthias Buschmann, Nicholas M. Deutscher, Dietrich G. Feist, David W. T. Griffith, Frank Hase, Rigel Kivi, Isamu Morino, Justus Notholt, Hirofumi Ohyama, Christof Petri, James R. Podolske, David F. Pollard, Mahesh Kumar Sha, Kei Shiomi, Ralf Sussmann, Yao Té, Voltaire A. Velazco, and Thorsten Warneke
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 3837–3869, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-3837-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-3837-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We present the first GOSAT and GOSAT-2 XCO2 data derived with the FOCAL retrieval algorithm. Comparisons of the GOSAT-FOCAL product with other data reveal long-term agreement within about 1 ppm over 1 decade, differences in seasonal variations of about 0.5 ppm, and a mean regional bias to ground-based TCCON data of 0.56 ppm with a mean scatter of 1.89 ppm. GOSAT-2-FOCAL data are preliminary only, but first comparisons show that they compare well with the GOSAT-FOCAL results and TCCON.
Patricia K. Quinn, Elizabeth J. Thompson, Derek J. Coffman, Sunil Baidar, Ludovic Bariteau, Timothy S. Bates, Sebastien Bigorre, Alan Brewer, Gijs de Boer, Simon P. de Szoeke, Kyla Drushka, Gregory R. Foltz, Janet Intrieri, Suneil Iyer, Chris W. Fairall, Cassandra J. Gaston, Friedhelm Jansen, James E. Johnson, Ovid O. Krüger, Richard D. Marchbanks, Kenneth P. Moran, David Noone, Sergio Pezoa, Robert Pincus, Albert J. Plueddemann, Mira L. Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Estefania Quinones Melendez, Haley M. Royer, Malgorzata Szczodrak, Jim Thomson, Lucia M. Upchurch, Chidong Zhang, Dongxiao Zhang, and Paquita Zuidema
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 1759–1790, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-1759-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-1759-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
ATOMIC took place in the northwestern tropical Atlantic during January and February of 2020 to gather information on shallow atmospheric convection, the effects of aerosols and clouds on the ocean surface energy budget, and mesoscale oceanic processes. Measurements made from the NOAA RV Ronald H. Brown and assets it deployed (instrumented mooring and uncrewed seagoing vehicles) are described herein to advance widespread use of the data by the ATOMIC and broader research communities.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Sabrina P. Cochrane, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Hong Chen, Peter Pilewskie, Scott Kittelman, Jens Redemann, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Connor Flynn, Amie Dobracki, Paquita Zuidema, Steven Howell, Steffen Freitag, and Sarah Doherty
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 567–593, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-567-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-567-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Based on observations from the 2016 and 2017 field campaigns of ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS), this work establishes an observationally driven link from mid-visible aerosol optical depth (AOD) and other scene parameters to broadband shortwave irradiance (and by extension the direct aerosol radiative effect, DARE). The majority of the case-to-case DARE variability within the ORACLES dataset is attributable to the dependence on AOD and scene albedo.
Jim M. Haywood, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Nicolas Bellouin, Alan Blyth, Keith N. Bower, Melissa Brooks, Ken Carslaw, Haochi Che, Hugh Coe, Michael I. Cotterell, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Nicholas Davies, Beth Dingley, Paul Field, Paola Formenti, Hamish Gordon, Martin de Graaf, Ross Herbert, Ben Johnson, Anthony C. Jones, Justin M. Langridge, Florent Malavelle, Daniel G. Partridge, Fanny Peers, Jens Redemann, Philip Stier, Kate Szpek, Jonathan W. Taylor, Duncan Watson-Parris, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1049–1084, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Every year, the seasonal cycle of biomass burning from agricultural practices in Africa creates a huge plume of smoke that travels many thousands of kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean. This study provides an overview of a measurement campaign called the cloud–aerosol–radiation interaction and forcing for year 2017 (CLARIFY-2017) and documents the rationale, deployment strategy, observations, and key results from the campaign which utilized the heavily equipped FAAM atmospheric research aircraft.
Marc Mallet, Fabien Solmon, Pierre Nabat, Nellie Elguindi, Fabien Waquet, Dominique Bouniol, Andrew Mark Sayer, Kerry Meyer, Romain Roehrig, Martine Michou, Paquita Zuidema, Cyrille Flamant, Jens Redemann, and Paola Formenti
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 13191–13216, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13191-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13191-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents numerical simulations using two regional climate models to study the impact of biomass fire plumes from central Africa on the radiative balance of this region. The results indicate that biomass fires can either warm the regional climate when they are located above low clouds or cool it when they are located above land. They can also alter sea and land surface temperatures by decreasing solar radiation at the surface. Finally, they can also modify the atmospheric dynamics.
Yohei Shinozuka, Pablo E. Saide, Gonzalo A. Ferrada, Sharon P. Burton, Richard Ferrare, Sarah J. Doherty, Hamish Gordon, Karla Longo, Marc Mallet, Yan Feng, Qiaoqiao Wang, Yafang Cheng, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Steven G. Howell, Samuel LeBlanc, Connor Flynn, Michal Segal-Rosenhaimer, Kristina Pistone, James R. Podolske, Eric J. Stith, Joseph Ryan Bennett, Gregory R. Carmichael, Arlindo da Silva, Ravi Govindaraju, Ruby Leung, Yang Zhang, Leonhard Pfister, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Jens Redemann, Robert Wood, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11491–11526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In the southeast Atlantic, well-defined smoke plumes from Africa advect over marine boundary layer cloud decks; both are most extensive around September, when most of the smoke resides in the free troposphere. A framework is put forth for evaluating the performance of a range of global and regional atmospheric composition models against observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) airborne mission in September 2016.
Yohei Shinozuka, Meloë S. Kacenelenbogen, Sharon P. Burton, Steven G. Howell, Paquita Zuidema, Richard A. Ferrare, Samuel E. LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Stephen Broccardo, Jens Redemann, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Sabrina P. Cochrane, Marta Fenn, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, Michal Segal-Rosenheimer, and Connor J. Flynn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11275–11285, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11275-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11275-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
To help satellite retrieval of aerosols and studies of their radiative effects, we demonstrate that daytime aerosol optical depth over low-level clouds is similar to that in neighboring clear skies at the same heights. Based on recent airborne lidar and sun photometer observations above the southeast Atlantic, the mean AOD difference at 532 nm is between 0 and -0.01, when comparing the cloudy and clear sides of cloud edges, with each up to 20 km wide.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Samantha J. Kramer, Claudia Alvarez, Anne E. Barkley, Peter R. Colarco, Lillian Custals, Rodrigo Delgadillo, Cassandra J. Gaston, Ravi Govindaraju, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10047–10062, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10047-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10047-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Comparisons of sea salt and size-resolved dust mass concentration measurements over southeast Florida to those from the MERRA-2/GEOS-5 FP aerosol reanalysis show the reanalysis depicts excessive sea salt and puts too much dust in larger intermediate sizes than do the measurements. The vertical distribution of the dust mass is approximately correct. The incorrect reanalysis aerosol speciation and dust sizes have implications for the modeling of their transport, deposition, and radiative impact.
Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Paquita Zuidema, Jianhao Zhang, Matt Christensen, Fanny Peers, Jonathan W. Taylor, Ian Crawford, Keith N. Bower, and Michael Flynn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4059–4084, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4059-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4059-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In situ measurements of a free-tropospheric (FT) biomass burning aerosol plume in contact with the boundary layer inversion overriding a pocket of open cells (POC) and surrounding stratiform cloud are presented. The data highlight the contrasting thermodynamic, aerosol and cloud properties in the two cloud regimes and further demonstrate that the cloud regime plays a key role in regulating the flow of FT aerosols into the boundary layer, which has implications for the aerosol indirect effect.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Samuel E. LeBlanc, Jens Redemann, Connor Flynn, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal-Rosenheimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Stephen Dunagan, Robert P. Dahlgren, Kerry Meyer, James Podolske, Steven G. Howell, Steffen Freitag, Jennifer Small-Griswold, Brent Holben, Michael Diamond, Robert Wood, Paola Formenti, Stuart Piketh, Gillian Maggs-Kölling, Monja Gerber, and Andreas Namwoonde
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1565–1590, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1565-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1565-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The southeast Atlantic during August–October experiences layers of smoke from biomass burning over marine stratocumulus clouds. Here we present the light attenuation of the smoke and its dependence in the spatial, vertical, and spectral domain through direct measurements from an airborne platform during September 2016. From our observations of this climatically important smoke, we found an average aerosol optical depth of 0.32 at 500 nm, slightly lower than comparative satellite measurements.
Sabrina P. Cochrane, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Hong Chen, Peter Pilewskie, Scott Kittelman, Jens Redemann, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, Connor Flynn, Steven Platnick, Kerry Meyer, Rich Ferrare, Sharon Burton, Chris Hostetler, Steven Howell, Steffen Freitag, Amie Dobracki, and Sarah Doherty
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 6505–6528, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-6505-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-6505-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
For two cases from the NASA ORACLES experiments, we retrieve aerosol and cloud properties and calculate a direct aerosol radiative effect (DARE). We investigate the relationship between DARE and the cloud albedo by specifying the albedo for which DARE transitions from a cooling to warming radiative effect. Our new aerosol retrieval algorithm is successful despite complexities associated with scenes that contain aerosols above clouds and decreases the uncertainty on retrieved aerosol parameters.
Jianhao Zhang and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 14493–14516, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14493-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14493-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Boundary layer (BL) semi-direct effects in the remote SE Atlantic are investigated using LASIC field measurements and satellite retrievals. Low-cloud cover and cloud liquid water path decrease with increasing smoke loadings in the BL. Daily-mean surface-based mixed layer is warmer by 0.5 K, moisture accumulates near the surface throughout the night, and the BL deepens by 200 m, with LWPs and cloud top heights increasing, in the sunlit morning hours, as part of the smoke-altered BL diurnal cycle.
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
Short summary
Short summary
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.
Andrew M. Sayer, N. Christina Hsu, Jaehwa Lee, Woogyung V. Kim, Sharon Burton, Marta A. Fenn, Richard A. Ferrare, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Samuel LeBlanc, Kristina Pistone, Jens Redemann, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Yohei Shinozuka, and Si-Chee Tsay
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 3595–3627, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3595-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3595-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols are small particles in the atmosphere such as dust or smoke. They are routinely monitored by satellites due to their importance for climate and air quality. However aerosols above clouds are more difficult to monitor. This study describes an improvement to a technique to monitor light-absorbing aerosols above clouds from four Earth-orbiting satellite instruments. The improved method is evaluated using data from the ORACLES field campaign, which measured these aerosols from aircraft.
Meloë S. Kacenelenbogen, Mark A. Vaughan, Jens Redemann, Stuart A. Young, Zhaoyan Liu, Yongxiang Hu, Ali H. Omar, Samuel LeBlanc, Yohei Shinozuka, John Livingston, Qin Zhang, and Kathleen A. Powell
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 4933–4962, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4933-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4933-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Significant efforts are required to estimate the direct radiative effects of aerosols above clouds (DAREcloudy). We have used a combination of passive and active A-Train satellite sensors and derive mainly positive global and regional DAREcloudy values (e.g., global seasonal values between 0.13 and 0.26 W m-2). Despite differences in methods and sensors, the DAREcloudy values in this study are generally higher than previously reported. We discuss the primary reasons for these higher estimates.
Marc Mallet, Pierre Nabat, Paquita Zuidema, Jens Redemann, Andrew Mark Sayer, Martin Stengel, Sebastian Schmidt, Sabrina Cochrane, Sharon Burton, Richard Ferrare, Kerry Meyer, Pablo Saide, Hiren Jethva, Omar Torres, Robert Wood, David Saint Martin, Romain Roehrig, Christina Hsu, and Paola Formenti
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 4963–4990, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4963-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4963-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The model is able to represent LWP but not the LCF. AOD is consistent over the continent but also over ocean (ACAOD). Differences are observed in SSA due to the absence of internal mixing in ALADIN-Climate. A significant regional gradient of the forcing at TOA is observed. An intense positive forcing is simulated over Gabon. Results highlight the significant effect of enhanced moisture on BBA extinction. The surface dimming modifies the energy budget.
Jacob K. Hedelius, Junjie Liu, Tomohiro Oda, Shamil Maksyutov, Coleen M. Roehl, Laura T. Iraci, James R. Podolske, Patrick W. Hillyard, Jianming Liang, Kevin R. Gurney, Debra Wunch, and Paul O. Wennberg
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 16271–16291, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-16271-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-16271-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Human activities can cause concentrated emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants from cities. There is ongoing effort to convert new satellite observations of pollutants into fluxes for many cities. Here we present a method for determining the flux of three species (CO2, CH4, and CO) from the greater LA area using satellite (CO2 only) and ground-based (all three species) observations. We run tests to estimate uncertainty and find the direct net CO2 flux is 104 ± 26 Tg CO2 yr−1.
Michael S. Diamond, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Jennifer D. Small Griswold, Ashley Heikkila, Steven G. Howell, Mary E. Kacarab, James R. Podolske, Pablo E. Saide, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 14623–14636, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-14623-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-14623-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Smoke from Africa can mix into clouds over the southeast Atlantic and create new droplets, which brightens the clouds, reflects more sunlight, and thus cools the region. Using aircraft data from a NASA field campaign, we find that cloud properties are correlated with smoke as expected when the smoke is below the clouds but not when smoke is above the clouds because it takes several days for clouds to mix smoke downward. We recommend methods that can track clouds as they move for future studies.
Debra Wunch, Paul O. Wennberg, Gregory Osterman, Brendan Fisher, Bret Naylor, Coleen M. Roehl, Christopher O'Dell, Lukas Mandrake, Camille Viatte, Matthäus Kiel, David W. T. Griffith, Nicholas M. Deutscher, Voltaire A. Velazco, Justus Notholt, Thorsten Warneke, Christof Petri, Martine De Maziere, Mahesh K. Sha, Ralf Sussmann, Markus Rettinger, David Pollard, John Robinson, Isamu Morino, Osamu Uchino, Frank Hase, Thomas Blumenstock, Dietrich G. Feist, Sabrina G. Arnold, Kimberly Strong, Joseph Mendonca, Rigel Kivi, Pauli Heikkinen, Laura Iraci, James Podolske, Patrick W. Hillyard, Shuji Kawakami, Manvendra K. Dubey, Harrison A. Parker, Eliezer Sepulveda, Omaira E. García, Yao Te, Pascal Jeseck, Michael R. Gunson, David Crisp, and Annmarie Eldering
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 2209–2238, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2209-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2209-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
This paper describes the comparisons between NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) column-averaged dry-air mole fractions of CO2 with its primary ground-based validation network, the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). The paper shows that while the standard bias correction reduces much of the spurious variability in the satellite measurements, residual biases remain.
Jacob K. Hedelius, Harrison Parker, Debra Wunch, Coleen M. Roehl, Camille Viatte, Sally Newman, Geoffrey C. Toon, James R. Podolske, Patrick W. Hillyard, Laura T. Iraci, Manvendra K. Dubey, and Paul O. Wennberg
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 1481–1493, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-1481-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-1481-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Two portable spectrometers, assumed to be internally precise, were taken to four different sites with (stationary) TCCON spectrometers. Biases of column averaged CO2 and CH4 measured among the TCCON sites were estimated experimentally. Results suggest that maximum (95 % confidence interval) bias among sites is less than what was estimated from a previous analytical error analysis.
Hiren Jethva, Omar Torres, Lorraine Remer, Jens Redemann, John Livingston, Stephen Dunagan, Yohei Shinozuka, Meloe Kacenelenbogen, Michal Segal Rosenheimer, and Rob Spurr
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 5053–5062, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5053-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5053-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
Validation of the above-cloud aerosol optical depth retrieved using the "color ratio" method applied to MODIS cloudy-sky
measurements against airborne direct measurements made by NASA’s AATS and 4STAR sun photometers during SAFARI-2000,
ACE-ASIA 2001, and SEAC4RS 2013 reveals a good level of agreement (difference < 0.1), in which most matchups are found
be constrained within the estimated uncertainties associated with the MODIS retrievals (-10 % to +50 %).
Eunsil Jung, Bruce A. Albrecht, Armin Sorooshian, Paquita Zuidema, and Haflidi H. Jonsson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 11395–11413, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-11395-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-11395-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
We calculate the qualitative behavior of precipitation response to aerosol loadings with cloud depths for warm boundary layer clouds (stratocumulus and shallow marine cumulus), using aircraft measurements across four field campaigns. The finding shows that precipitation responds similarly to aerosol loadings for both stratocumulus and cumulus clouds, regardless of cloud type. Precipitation is most susceptible to aerosol perturbations in the medium–deep depth of clouds.
Makoto Inoue, Isamu Morino, Osamu Uchino, Takahiro Nakatsuru, Yukio Yoshida, Tatsuya Yokota, Debra Wunch, Paul O. Wennberg, Coleen M. Roehl, David W. T. Griffith, Voltaire A. Velazco, Nicholas M. Deutscher, Thorsten Warneke, Justus Notholt, John Robinson, Vanessa Sherlock, Frank Hase, Thomas Blumenstock, Markus Rettinger, Ralf Sussmann, Esko Kyrö, Rigel Kivi, Kei Shiomi, Shuji Kawakami, Martine De Mazière, Sabrina G. Arnold, Dietrich G. Feist, Erica A. Barrow, James Barney, Manvendra Dubey, Matthias Schneider, Laura T. Iraci, James R. Podolske, Patrick W. Hillyard, Toshinobu Machida, Yousuke Sawa, Kazuhiro Tsuboi, Hidekazu Matsueda, Colm Sweeney, Pieter P. Tans, Arlyn E. Andrews, Sebastien C. Biraud, Yukio Fukuyama, Jasna V. Pittman, Eric A. Kort, and Tomoaki Tanaka
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 3491–3512, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-3491-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-3491-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we correct the biases of GOSAT XCO2 and XCH4 using TCCON data. To evaluate the effectiveness of our correction method, uncorrected/corrected GOSAT data are compared to independent XCO2 and XCH4 data derived from aircraft measurements. Consequently, we suggest that this method is effective for reducing the biases of the GOSAT data. We consider that our work provides GOSAT data users with valuable information and contributes to the further development of studies on greenhouse gases.
Chul Eddy Chung, Anna Lewinschal, and Eric Wilcox
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 5781–5792, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5781-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5781-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
This is the first study looking at the amount of aerosols above cloud to see whether the amount is greater or less than in nearby clear skies at the same heights.
We find that the aerosol amount over cloud differs a lot from that in nearby clear skies over some areas.
These results give an indication, for the first time, that clouds might affect the amount of overlying aerosols.
Kristina Pistone, Puppala S. Praveen, Rick M. Thomas, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Eric M. Wilcox, and Frida A.-M. Bender
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 5203–5227, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5203-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5203-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
A recent field campaign (CARDEX) in the northern Indian Ocean concurrently measured cloud and aerosol properties and atmospheric structure and dynamics from a ground-based observatory and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These new measurements show a correlation between highly polluted conditions and increased cloud water content, concurrent with higher atmospheric temperature and humidity. Such correlations may be of interest in future studies of the effects of pollution on cloud properties.
S. E. LeBlanc, P. Pilewskie, K. S. Schmidt, and O. Coddington
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1361–1383, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1361-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1361-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
Cloud properties are obtained via transmitted light that has interacted with cloud particles throughout its vertical extent. To achieve this, we introduce a new retrieval based on spectrally resolved measurements. We used 15 parameters to quantify spectral features in transmitted light modulated by cloud optical thickness, effective radius, and thermodynamic phase. When applied to ground-based measurements, this method results in a closer match to measured spectra than two other methods.
S. G. Howell, A. D. Clarke, S. Freitag, C. S. McNaughton, V. Kapustin, V. Brekovskikh, J.-L. Jimenez, and M. J. Cubison
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 5073–5087, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-5073-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-5073-2014, 2014
S. Freitag, A. D. Clarke, S. G. Howell, V. N. Kapustin, T. Campos, V. L. Brekhovskikh, and J. Zhou
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 107–128, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-107-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-107-2014, 2014
A. D. Clarke, S. Freitag, R. M. C. Simpson, J. G. Hudson, S. G. Howell, V. L. Brekhovskikh, T. Campos, V. N. Kapustin, and J. Zhou
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 7511–7529, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7511-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7511-2013, 2013
R. Blot, A. D. Clarke, S. Freitag, V. Kapustin, S. G. Howell, J. B. Jensen, L. M. Shank, C. S. McNaughton, and V. Brekhovskikh
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 7263–7278, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7263-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7263-2013, 2013
C. H. Twohy, J. R. Anderson, D. W. Toohey, M. Andrejczuk, A. Adams, M. Lytle, R. C. George, R. Wood, P. Saide, S. Spak, P. Zuidema, and D. Leon
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 2541–2562, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2541-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2541-2013, 2013
D. Painemal and P. Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 917–931, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-917-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-917-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Subject: Aerosols | Research Activity: Field Measurements | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Large spatiotemporal variability in aerosol properties over central Argentina during the CACTI field campaign
Quantification and characterization of primary biological aerosol particles and microbes aerosolized from Baltic seawater
Brownness of organics in anthropogenic biomass burning aerosols over South Asia
Source apportionment of particle number size distribution at the street canyon and urban background sites
Long-range transport of coarse mineral dust: an evaluation of the Met Office Unified Model against aircraft observations
Extreme Saharan dust events expand northward over the Atlantic and Europe, prompting record-breaking PM10 and PM2.5 episodes
Atmospheric black carbon in the metropolitan area of La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia: concentration levels and emission sources
Changing optical properties of black carbon and brown carbon aerosols during long-range transport from the Indo-Gangetic Plain to the equatorial Indian Ocean
Aerosol size distribution properties associated with cold-air outbreaks in the Norwegian Arctic
Ice-nucleating particles active below −24 °C in a Finnish boreal forest and their relationship to bioaerosols
Measurements of particle emissions of an A350-941 burning 100 % sustainable aviation fuels in cruise
Vertical distribution of ice nucleating particles over the boreal forest of Hyytiälä, Finland
Multi-year gradient measurements of sea spray fluxes over the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean
External particle mixing influences hygroscopicity in a sub-urban area
Measurement report: In situ vertical profiles of below-cloud aerosol over the central Greenland Ice Sheet
Occurrence, abundance, and formation of atmospheric tarballs from a wide range of wildfires in the western US
Measurement report: Contribution of atmospheric new particle formation to ultrafine particle concentration, cloud condensation nuclei, and radiative forcing – results from 5-year observations in central Europe
Simulated contrail-processed aviation soot aerosols are poor ice-nucleating particles at cirrus temperatures
Biological and dust aerosols as sources of ice-nucleating particles in the eastern Mediterranean: source apportionment, atmospheric processing and parameterization
Quantifying the dust direct radiative effect in the southwestern United States: findings from multiyear measurements
How horizontal transport and turbulent mixing impact aerosol particle and precursor concentrations at a background site in the UAE
Markedly different impacts of primary emissions and secondary aerosol formation on aerosol mixing states revealed by simultaneous measurements of CCNC, H(/V)TDMA, and SP2
Vertically resolved aerosol variability at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory under wet-season conditions
Measurement report: Analysis of aerosol optical depth variation at Zhongshan Station in Antarctica
Shipborne observations of black carbon aerosols in the western Arctic Ocean during summer and autumn 2016–2020: impact of boreal fires
High ice-nucleating particle concentrations associated with Arctic haze in springtime cold-air outbreaks
CCN estimations at a high-altitude remote site: role of organic aerosol variability and hygroscopicity
Attribution of aerosol particle number size distributions to main sources using an 11-year urban dataset
Contribution of fluorescent primary biological aerosol particles to low-level Arctic cloud residuals
Opinion: New directions in atmospheric research offered by research infrastructures combined with open and data-intensive science
Measurement report: A comparison of ground-level ice-nucleating-particle abundance and aerosol properties during autumn at contrasting marine and terrestrial locations
Efficient droplet activation of ambient black carbon particles in a suburban environment
Tropospheric sulfate from Cumbre Vieja (La Palma) observed over Cabo Verde contrasted with background conditions: a lidar case study of aerosol extinction, backscatter, depolarization and lidar ratio profiles at 355, 532 and 1064 nm
The radiative impact of biomass burning aerosols on dust emissions over Namibia and the long-range transport of smoke observed during the Aerosols, Radiation and Clouds in southern Africa (AEROCLO-sA) campaign
Extending the wind profile beyond the surface layer by combining physical and machine learning approaches
Amazonian aerosol size distributions in a lognormal phase space: characteristics and trajectories
Measurement report: Hygroscopicity of size-selected aerosol particles in the heavily polluted urban atmosphere of Delhi: impacts of chloride aerosol
An observation-constrained estimation of brown carbon aerosol direct radiative effects
The Puy de Dôme ICe Nucleation Intercomparison Campaign (PICNIC): comparison between online and offline methods in ambient air
Optical properties and simple forcing efficiency of the organic aerosols and black carbon emitted by residential wood burning in rural central Europe
Particle phase state and aerosol liquid water greatly impact secondary aerosol formation: insights into phase transition and its role in haze events
Measurement Report: Comparative Analysis of Fluorescing African Dust Particles in Spain and Puerto Rico
Measurement report: Nocturnal subsidence behind the cold front enhances surface particulate matter in plains regions: observations from the mobile multi-lidar system
Increase in precipitation scavenging contributes to long-term reductions of light-absorbing aerosol in the Arctic
Sea spray emissions from the Baltic Sea: comparison of aerosol eddy covariance fluxes and chamber-simulated sea spray emissions
Higher absorption enhancement of black carbon in summer shown by 2-year measurements at the high-altitude mountain site of Pic du Midi Observatory in the French Pyrenees
Variations of the atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations, sources, and health risk and the direct medical costs of lung cancer around the Bohai Sea against a background of pollution prevention and control in China
The Spatial and Temporal Impact of the February 26, 2023, Dust Storm on the Meteorological Conditions and Particulate Matter Concentrations Across New Mexico and West Texas
Characterization of aerosol over the Eastern Mediterranean by polarization sensitive Raman lidar measurements during A-LIFE – aerosol type classification and type separation
Introducing the novel concept of cumulative concentration roses for studying the transport of ultrafine particles from an airport to adjacent residential areas
Jerome D. Fast, Adam C. Varble, Fan Mei, Mikhail Pekour, Jason Tomlinson, Alla Zelenyuk, Art J. Sedlacek III, Maria Zawadowicz, and Louisa Emmons
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13477–13502, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol property measurements recently collected on the ground and by a research aircraft in central Argentina during the Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) campaign exhibit large spatial and temporal variability. These measurements coupled with coincident meteorological information provide a valuable data set needed to evaluate and improve model predictions of aerosols in a traditionally data-sparse region of South America.
Julika Zinke, Gabriel Pereira Freitas, Rachel Ann Foster, Paul Zieger, Ernst Douglas Nilsson, Piotr Markuszewski, and Matthew Edward Salter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13413–13428, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13413-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13413-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Bioaerosols, which can influence climate and human health, were studied in the Baltic Sea. In May and August 2021, we used a sea spray simulation chamber during two ship-based campaigns to collect and measure these aerosols. We found that microbes were enriched in air compared to seawater. Bacterial diversity was analysed using DNA sequencing. Our methods provided consistent estimates of microbial emission fluxes, aligning with previous studies.
Chimurkar Navinya, Taveen Singh Kapoor, Gupta Anurag, Chandra Venkataraman, Harish C. Phuleria, and Rajan K. Chakrabarty
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13285–13297, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13285-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13285-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Brown carbon (BrC) aerosols show an order-of-magnitude variation in their light absorption strength. Our understanding of BrC from real-world biomass burning remains limited, complicating the determination of its radiative impact. Our study reports absorption properties of BrC emitted from four major biomass burning sources using field measurements in India. It develops an absorption parameterization for BrC and examines the spatial variability in BrC's absorption strength across India.
Sami D. Harni, Minna Aurela, Sanna Saarikoski, Jarkko V. Niemi, Harri Portin, Hanna Manninen, Ville Leinonen, Pasi Aalto, Phil K. Hopke, Tuukka Petäjä, Topi Rönkkö, and Hilkka Timonen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12143–12160, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12143-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12143-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, particle number size distribution data were used in a novel way in positive matrix factorization analysis to find aerosol source profiles in the area. Measurements were made in Helsinki at a street canyon and urban background sites between February 2015 and June 2019. Five different aerosol sources were identified. These sources underline the significance of traffic-related emissions in urban environments despite recent improvements in emission reduction technologies.
Natalie G. Ratcliffe, Claire L. Ryder, Nicolas Bellouin, Stephanie Woodward, Anthony Jones, Ben Johnson, Lisa-Maria Wieland, Maximilian Dollner, Josef Gasteiger, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12161–12181, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Large mineral dust particles are more abundant in the atmosphere than expected and have different impacts on the environment than small particles, which are better represented in climate models. We use aircraft measurements to assess a climate model representation of large-dust transport. We find that the model underestimates the amount of large dust at all stages of transport and that fast removal of the large particles increases this underestimation with distance from the Sahara.
Sergio Rodríguez and Jessica López-Darias
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12031–12053, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12031-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12031-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Extreme Saharan dust events expanded northward to the Atlantic and Europe, prompting record-breaking PM10 and PM2.5 events. These episodes are caused by low-to-high dipole meteorology during hemispheric anomalies characterized by subtropical anticyclones shifting to higher latitudes, anomalous low pressures beyond the tropics and amplified Rossby waves. Extreme dust events occur in a paradoxical context of a multidecadal decrease in dust emissions, a topic that requires further investigation.
Valeria Mardoñez-Balderrama, Griša Močnik, Marco Pandolfi, Robin L. Modini, Fernando Velarde, Laura Renzi, Angela Marinoni, Jean-Luc Jaffrezo, Isabel Moreno R., Diego Aliaga, Federico Bianchi, Claudia Mohr, Martin Gysel-Beer, Patrick Ginot, Radovan Krejci, Alfred Wiedensohler, Gaëlle Uzu, Marcos Andrade, and Paolo Laj
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12055–12077, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12055-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12055-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Levels of black carbon (BC) are scarcely reported in the Southern Hemisphere, especially in high-altitude conditions. This study provides insight into the concentration level, variability, and optical properties of BC in La Paz and El Alto and at the Chacaltaya Global Atmosphere Watch Station. Two methods of source apportionment of absorption were tested and compared showing traffic as the main contributor to absorption in the urban area, in addition to biomass and open waste burning.
Krishnakant Budhavant, Mohanan Remani Manoj, Hari Ram Chandrika Rajendran Nair, Samuel Mwaniki Gaita, Henry Holmstrand, Abdus Salam, Ahmed Muslim, Sreedharan Krishnakumari Satheesh, and Örjan Gustafsson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11911–11925, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11911-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11911-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The South Asian Pollution Experiment 2018 used access to three strategically located receptor observatories. Observational constraints revealed opposing trends in the mass absorption cross sections of black carbon (BC MAC) and brown carbon (BrC MAC) during long-range transport. Models estimating the climate effects of BC aerosols may have underestimated the ambient BC MAC over distant receptor areas, leading to discrepancies in aerosol absorption predicted by observation-constrained models.
Abigail S. Williams, Jeramy L. Dedrick, Lynn M. Russell, Florian Tornow, Israel Silber, Ann M. Fridlind, Benjamin Swanson, Paul J. DeMott, Paul Zieger, and Radovan Krejci
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11791–11805, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11791-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11791-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The measured aerosol size distribution modes reveal distinct properties characteristic of cold-air outbreaks in the Norwegian Arctic. We find higher sea spray number concentrations, smaller Hoppel minima, lower effective supersaturations, and accumulation-mode particle scavenging during cold-air outbreaks. These results advance our understanding of cold-air outbreak aerosol–cloud interactions in order to improve their accurate representation in models.
Franziska Vogel, Michael P. Adams, Larissa Lacher, Polly B. Foster, Grace C. E. Porter, Barbara Bertozzi, Kristina Höhler, Julia Schneider, Tobias Schorr, Nsikanabasi S. Umo, Jens Nadolny, Zoé Brasseur, Paavo Heikkilä, Erik S. Thomson, Nicole Büttner, Martin I. Daily, Romy Fösig, Alexander D. Harrison, Jorma Keskinen, Ulrike Proske, Jonathan Duplissy, Markku Kulmala, Tuukka Petäjä, Ottmar Möhler, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11737–11757, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11737-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11737-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Primary ice formation in clouds strongly influences their properties; hence, it is important to understand the sources of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) and their variability. We present 2 months of INP measurements in a Finnish boreal forest using a new semi-autonomous INP counting device based on gas expansion. These results show strong variability in INP concentrations, and we present a case that the INPs we observe are, at least some of the time, of biological origin.
Rebecca Dischl, Daniel Sauer, Christiane Voigt, Theresa Harlaß, Felicitas Sakellariou, Raphael Märkl, Ulrich Schumann, Monika Scheibe, Stefan Kaufmann, Anke Roiger, Andreas Dörnbrack, Charles Renard, Maxime Gauthier, Peter Swann, Paul Madden, Darren Luff, Mark Johnson, Denise Ahrens, Reetu Sallinen, Tobias Schripp, Georg Eckel, Uwe Bauder, and Patrick Le Clercq
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11255–11273, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11255-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11255-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In-flight measurements of aircraft emissions burning 100 % sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) show reduced particle number concentrations up to 41 % compared to conventional jet fuel. Particle emissions are dependent on engine power setting, flight altitude, and fuel composition. Engine models show a good correlation with measurement results. Future increased prevalence of SAF can positively influence the climate impact of aviation.
Zoé Brasseur, Julia Schneider, Janne Lampilahti, Ville Vakkari, Victoria A. Sinclair, Christina J. Williamson, Carlton Xavier, Dmitri Moisseev, Markus Hartmann, Pyry Poutanen, Markus Lampimäki, Markku Kulmala, Tuukka Petäjä, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Erik S. Thomson, Kristina Höhler, Ottmar Möhler, and Jonathan Duplissy
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11305–11332, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11305-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11305-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) strongly influence the formation of clouds by initiating the formation of ice crystals. However, very little is known about the vertical distribution of INPs in the atmosphere. Here, we present aircraft measurements of INP concentrations above the Finnish boreal forest. Results show that near-surface INPs are efficiently transported and mixed within the boundary layer and occasionally reach the free troposphere.
Piotr Markuszewski, E. Douglas Nilsson, Julika Zinke, E. Monica Mårtensson, Matthew Salter, Przemysław Makuch, Małgorzata Kitowska, Iwona Niedźwiecka-Wróbel, Violetta Drozdowska, Dominik Lis, Tomasz Petelski, Luca Ferrero, and Jacek Piskozub
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11227–11253, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11227-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11227-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Our research provides new insights into the study of sea spray aerosol (SSA) emissions in the Baltic Sea and North Atlantic. We observed that SSA flux is suppressed during increased marine biological activity in the Baltic Sea. At the same time, the influence of wave age showed higher SSA emissions in the Baltic Sea for younger waves compared to the Atlantic Ocean. These insights underscore the complex interplay between biological activity and physical dynamics in regulating SSA emissions.
Shravan Deshmukh, Laurent Poulain, Birgit Wehner, Silvia Henning, Jean-Eudes Petit, Pauline Fombelle, Olivier Favez, Hartmut Herrmann, and Mira Pöhlker
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3027, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3027, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol hygroscopicity has been investigated at the sub-urban site in Paris; analysis shows the sub-saturated regime's measured hygroscopicity and the chemically derived hygroscopic growth, shedding light on the large effect of external particle mixing and its influence on predicting hygroscopicity.
Heather Guy, Andrew S. Martin, Erik Olson, Ian M. Brooks, and Ryan R. Neely III
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11103–11114, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11103-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11103-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol particles impact cloud properties which influence Greenland Ice Sheet melt. Understanding the aerosol population that interacts with clouds is important for constraining future melt. Measurements of aerosols at cloud height over Greenland are rare, and surface measurements are often used to investigate cloud–aerosol interactions. We use a tethered balloon to measure aerosols up to cloud base and show that surface measurements are often not equivalent to those just below the cloud.
Kouji Adachi, Jack E. Dibb, Joseph M. Katich, Joshua P. Schwarz, Hongyu Guo, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Jose L. Jimenez, Jeff Peischl, Christopher D. Holmes, and James Crawford
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10985–11004, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10985-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10985-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We examined aerosol particles from wildfires and identified tarballs (TBs) from the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) campaign. This study reveals the compositions, abundance, sizes, and mixing states of TBs and shows that TBs formed as the smoke aged for up to 5 h. This study provides measurements of TBs from various biomass-burning events and ages, enhancing our knowledge of TB emissions and our understanding of their climate impact.
Jia Sun, Markus Hermann, Kay Weinhold, Maik Merkel, Wolfram Birmili, Yifan Yang, Thomas Tuch, Harald Flentje, Björn Briel, Ludwig Ries, Cedric Couret, Michael Elsasser, Ralf Sohmer, Klaus Wirtz, Frank Meinhardt, Maik Schütze, Olaf Bath, Bryan Hellack, Veli-Matti Kerminen, Markku Kulmala, Nan Ma, and Alfred Wiedensohler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10667–10687, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10667-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10667-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We investigated the characteristics of new particle formation (NPF) for various environments from urban background to high Alpine and the impacts of NPF on cloud condensation nuclei and aerosol radiative forcing. NPF features differ between site categories, implying the crucial role of local environmental factors such as the degree of emissions and meteorological conditions. The results also underscore the importance of local environments when assessing the impact of NPF on climate in models.
Baptiste Testa, Lukas Durdina, Jacinta Edebeli, Curdin Spirig, and Zamin A. Kanji
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10409–10424, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10409-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10409-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aviation soot residuals released from contrails can become compacted upon sublimation of the ice crystals, generating new voids in the aggregates where ice nucleation can occur. Here we show that contrail-processed soot is highly compact but that it remains unable to form ice at a relative humidity different from that required for the formation of background cirrus from the more ubiquitous aqueous solution droplets, suggesting that it will not perturb cirrus cloud formation via ice nucleation.
Kunfeng Gao, Franziska Vogel, Romanos Foskinis, Stergios Vratolis, Maria I. Gini, Konstantinos Granakis, Anne-Claire Billault-Roux, Paraskevi Georgakaki, Olga Zografou, Prodromos Fetfatzis, Alexis Berne, Alexandros Papayannis, Konstantinos Eleftheridadis, Ottmar Möhler, and Athanasios Nenes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9939–9974, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9939-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9939-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ice nucleating particle (INP) concentrations are required for correct predictions of clouds and precipitation in a changing climate, but they are poorly constrained in climate models. We unravel source contributions to INPs in the eastern Mediterranean and find that biological particles are important, regardless of their origin. The parameterizations developed exhibit superior performance and enable models to consider biological-particle effects on INPs.
Alexandra Kuwano, Amato T. Evan, Blake Walkowiak, and Robert Frouin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9843–9868, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9843-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9843-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The dust direct radiative effect is highly uncertain. Here we used new measurements collected over 3 years and during dust storms at a field site in a desert region in the southwestern United States to estimate the regional dust direct radiative effect. We also used novel soil mineralogy retrieved from an airborne spectrometer to estimate this parameter with model output. We find that, in this region, dust has a minimal net cooling effect on this region's climate.
Jutta Kesti, Ewan J. O'Connor, Anne Hirsikko, John Backman, Maria Filioglou, Anu-Maija Sundström, Juha Tonttila, Heikki Lihavainen, Hannele Korhonen, and Eija Asmi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9369–9386, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9369-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9369-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The study combines aerosol particle measurements at the surface and vertical profiling of the atmosphere with a scanning Doppler lidar to investigate how particle transportation together with boundary layer evolution can affect particle and SO2 concentrations at the surface in the Arabian Peninsula region. The instrumentation enabled us to see elevated nucleation mode particle and SO2 concentrations at the surface when air masses transported from polluted areas are mixed in the boundary layer.
Jiangchuan Tao, Biao Luo, Weiqi Xu, Gang Zhao, Hanbin Xu, Biao Xue, Miaomiao Zhai, Wanyun Xu, Huarong Zhao, Sanxue Ren, Guangsheng Zhou, Li Liu, Ye Kuang, and Yele Sun
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9131–9154, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9131-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9131-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Using simultaneous measurements of DMA–CCNC, H(/V)TDMA, and DMA–SP2, impacts of primary emissions and secondary aerosol formations on changes in aerosol physicochemical properties were comprehensively investigated. It was found that intercomparisons among aerosol mixing-state parameters derived from different techniques can help us gain more insight into aerosol physical properties which, in turn, will aid the investigation of emission characteristics and secondary aerosol formation pathways.
Marco A. Franco, Rafael Valiati, Bruna A. Holanda, Bruno B. Meller, Leslie A. Kremper, Luciana V. Rizzo, Samara Carbone, Fernando G. Morais, Janaína P. Nascimento, Meinrat O. Andreae, Micael A. Cecchini, Luiz A. T. Machado, Milena Ponczek, Ulrich Pöschl, David Walter, Christopher Pöhlker, and Paulo Artaxo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8751–8770, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8751-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8751-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Amazon wet-season atmosphere was studied at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory site, revealing vertical variations (between 60 and 325 m) in natural aerosols. Daytime mixing contrasted with nighttime stratification, with distinct rain-induced changes in aerosol populations. Notably, optical property recovery at higher levels was faster, while near-canopy aerosols showed higher scattering efficiency. These findings enhance our understanding of aerosol impacts on climate dynamics.
Lijing Chen, Lei Zhang, Yong She, Zhaoliang Zeng, Yu Zheng, Biao Tian, Wenqian Zhang, Zhaohui Liu, and Minghu Ding
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-798, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-798, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
AOD at Zhongshan Station varies seasonally, with lower values in summer and higher values in winter. Winter and spring AOD increases due to reduced fine mode particles, while summer and autumn increases are linked to particle growth. Duirnal AOD variation correlates positively with temperature but negatively with wind speed and humidity. Backward trajectory shows aerosols on high (low) AOD days primarily originate from the ocean (interior Antarctica).
Yange Deng, Hiroshi Tanimoto, Kohei Ikeda, Sohiko Kameyama, Sachiko Okamoto, Jinyoung Jung, Young Jun Yoon, Eun Jin Yang, and Sung-Ho Kang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6339–6357, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6339-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6339-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Black carbon (BC) aerosols play important roles in Arctic climate change, yet they are not well understood because of limited observational data. We observed BC mass concentrations (mBC) in the western Arctic Ocean during summer and early autumn 2016–2020. The mean mBC in 2019 was much higher than in other years. Biomass burning was likely the dominant BC source. Boreal fire BC transport occurring near the surface and/or in the mid-troposphere contributed to high-BC events in the Arctic Ocean.
Erin N. Raif, Sarah L. Barr, Mark D. Tarn, James B. McQuaid, Martin I. Daily, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Keith N. Bower, Paul R. Field, Kenneth S. Carslaw, and Benjamin J. Murray
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1502, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1502, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) allow ice to form in clouds at temperatures warmer than -35°C. We measured INP concentrations over the Norwegian and Barents seas in weather events where cold air is ejected from the Arctic. These concentrations were among the highest measured in the Arctic and it is likely that the INPs were transported to the Arctic from distant regions. These results show it is important to consider hemispheric-scale INP processes to understand INP concentrations in the Arctic.
Fernando Rejano, Andrea Casans, Marta Via, Juan Andrés Casquero-Vera, Sonia Castillo, Hassan Lyamani, Alberto Cazorla, Elisabeth Andrews, Daniel Pérez-Ramírez, Andrés Alastuey, Francisco Javier Gómez-Moreno, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, Francisco José Olmo, and Gloria Titos
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1059, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1059, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study provides valuable insights to improve cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) estimations at a high-altitude remote site which is influenced by nearby urban pollution. Understanding the factors that affect CCN estimations is essential to improve the CCN data coverage worldwide and assess aerosol-cloud interactions in a global scale. This is crucial for improving climate models since aerosol-cloud interactions are the most important source of uncertainty in climate projections.
Máté Vörösmarty, Philip K. Hopke, and Imre Salma
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5695–5712, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5695-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5695-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The World Health Organization identified ultrafine particles, which make up most of the particle number concentrations, as a potential risk factor for humans. The sources of particle numbers are very different from those of the particulate matter mass. We performed source apportionment of size-segregated particle number concentrations over the diameter range of 6–1000 nm in Budapest for 11 full years. Six source types were identified, characterized and quantified.
Gabriel Pereira Freitas, Ben Kopec, Kouji Adachi, Radovan Krejci, Dominic Heslin-Rees, Karl Espen Yttri, Alun Hubbard, Jeffrey M. Welker, and Paul Zieger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5479–5494, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5479-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5479-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Bioaerosols can participate in ice formation within clouds. In the Arctic, where global warming manifests most, they may become more important as their sources prevail for longer periods of the year. We have directly measured bioaerosols within clouds for a full year at an Arctic mountain site using a novel combination of cloud particle sampling and single-particle techniques. We show that bioaerosols act as cloud seeds and may influence the presence of ice within clouds.
Andreas Petzold, Ulrich Bundke, Anca Hienola, Paolo Laj, Cathrine Lund Myhre, Alex Vermeulen, Angeliki Adamaki, Werner Kutsch, Valerie Thouret, Damien Boulanger, Markus Fiebig, Markus Stocker, Zhiming Zhao, and Ari Asmi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5369–5388, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5369-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5369-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Easy and fast access to long-term and high-quality observational data is recognised as fundamental to environmental research and the development of climate forecasting and assessment services. We discuss the potential new directions in atmospheric sciences offered by the atmosphere-centric European research infrastructures ACTRIS, IAGOS, and ICOS, building on their capabilities for standardised provision of data through open access combined with tools and methods of data-intensive science.
Elise K. Wilbourn, Larissa Lacher, Carlos Guerrero, Hemanth S. K. Vepuri, Kristina Höhler, Jens Nadolny, Aidan D. Pantoya, Ottmar Möhler, and Naruki Hiranuma
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5433–5456, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5433-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5433-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ambient ice particles were measured at terrestrial and temperate marine sites. Ice particles were more abundant in the former site, while the fraction of ice particles relative to total ambient particles, representing atmospheric ice nucleation efficiency, was higher in the latter site. Ice nucleation parameterizations were developed as a function of examined freezing temperatures from two sites for our study periods (autumn).
Ping Tian, Dantong Liu, Kang Hu, Yangzhou Wu, Mengyu Huang, Hui He, Jiujiang Sheng, Chenjie Yu, Dawei Hu, and Deping Ding
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5149–5164, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5149-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5149-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The results provide direct evidence of efficient droplet activation of black carbon (BC). The cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activation fraction of BC was higher than for all particles, suggesting higher CCN activity of BC, even though its hygroscopicity is lower. Our research reveals that the evolution of BC's hygroscopicity and its CCN activation properties through atmospheric aging can be effectively characterized by the photochemical age.
Henriette Gebauer, Athena Augusta Floutsi, Moritz Haarig, Martin Radenz, Ronny Engelmann, Dietrich Althausen, Annett Skupin, Albert Ansmann, Cordula Zenk, and Holger Baars
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5047–5067, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5047-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5047-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Sulfate aerosol from the volcanic eruption at La Palma in 2021 was observed over Cabo Verde. We characterized the aerosol burden based on a case study of lidar and sun photometer observations. We compared the volcanic case to the typical background conditions (reference case) to quantify the volcanic pollution. We show the first ever measurements of the extinction coefficient, lidar ratio and depolarization ratio at 1064 nm for volcanic sulfate.
Cyrille Flamant, Jean-Pierre Chaboureau, Marco Gaetani, Kerstin Schepanski, and Paola Formenti
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4265–4288, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4265-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4265-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In the austral dry season, the atmospheric composition over southern Africa is dominated by biomass burning aerosols and terrigenous aerosols (so-called mineral dust). This study suggests that the radiative effect of biomass burning aerosols needs to be taken into account to properly forecast dust emissions in Namibia.
Boming Liu, Xin Ma, Jianping Guo, Renqiang Wen, Hui Li, Shikuan Jin, Yingying Ma, Xiaoran Guo, and Wei Gong
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4047–4063, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4047-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4047-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Accurate wind profile estimation, especially for the lowest few hundred meters of the atmosphere, is of great significance for the weather, climate, and renewable energy sector. We propose a novel method that combines the power-law method with the random forest algorithm to extend wind profiles beyond the surface layer. Compared with the traditional algorithm, this method has better stability and spatial applicability and can be used to obtain the wind profiles on different land cover types.
Gabriela R. Unfer, Luiz A. T. Machado, Paulo Artaxo, Marco A. Franco, Leslie A. Kremper, Mira L. Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, and Christopher Pöhlker
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3869–3882, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3869-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3869-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Amazonian aerosols and their interactions with precipitation were studied by understanding them in a 3D space based on three parameters that characterize the concentration and size distribution of aerosols. The results showed characteristic arrangements regarding seasonal and diurnal cycles, as well as when interacting with precipitation. The use of this 3D space appears to be a promising tool for aerosol population analysis and for model validation and parameterization.
Anil Kumar Mandariya, Ajit Ahlawat, Mohammed Haneef, Nisar Ali Baig, Kanan Patel, Joshua Apte, Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz, Alfred Wiedensohler, and Gazala Habib
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3627–3647, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3627-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3627-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The current study explores the temporal variation of size-selected particle hygroscopicity in Delhi for the first time. Here, we report that the high volume fraction contribution of ammonium chloride to aerosol governs the high aerosol hygroscopicity and associated liquid water content based on the experimental data. The episodically high ammonium chloride present in Delhi's atmosphere could lead to haze and fog formation under high relative humidity in the region.
Yueyue Cheng, Chao Liu, Jiandong Wang, Jiaping Wang, Zhouyang Zhang, Li Chen, Dafeng Ge, Caijun Zhu, Jinbo Wang, and Aijun Ding
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3065–3078, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3065-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3065-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Brown carbon (BrC), a light-absorbing aerosol, plays a pivotal role in influencing global climate. However, assessing BrC radiative effects remains challenging because the required observational data are hardly accessible. Here we develop a new BrC radiative effect estimation method combining conventional observations and numerical models. Our findings reveal that BrC absorbs up to a third of the sunlight at 370 nm that black carbon does, highlighting its importance in aerosol radiative effects.
Larissa Lacher, Michael P. Adams, Kevin Barry, Barbara Bertozzi, Heinz Bingemer, Cristian Boffo, Yannick Bras, Nicole Büttner, Dimitri Castarede, Daniel J. Cziczo, Paul J. DeMott, Romy Fösig, Megan Goodell, Kristina Höhler, Thomas C. J. Hill, Conrad Jentzsch, Luis A. Ladino, Ezra J. T. Levin, Stephan Mertes, Ottmar Möhler, Kathryn A. Moore, Benjamin J. Murray, Jens Nadolny, Tatjana Pfeuffer, David Picard, Carolina Ramírez-Romero, Mickael Ribeiro, Sarah Richter, Jann Schrod, Karine Sellegri, Frank Stratmann, Benjamin E. Swanson, Erik S. Thomson, Heike Wex, Martin J. Wolf, and Evelyn Freney
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2651–2678, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2651-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2651-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol particles that trigger ice formation in clouds are important for the climate system but are very rare in the atmosphere, challenging measurement techniques. Here we compare three cloud chambers and seven methods for collecting aerosol particles on filters for offline analysis at a mountaintop station. A general good agreement of the methods was found when sampling aerosol particles behind a whole air inlet, supporting their use for obtaining data that can be implemented in models.
Andrea Cuesta-Mosquera, Kristina Glojek, Griša Močnik, Luka Drinovec, Asta Gregorič, Martin Rigler, Matej Ogrin, Baseerat Romshoo, Kay Weinhold, Maik Merkel, Dominik van Pinxteren, Hartmut Herrmann, Alfred Wiedensohler, Mira Pöhlker, and Thomas Müller
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2583–2605, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2583-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2583-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study evaluated the air pollution and climate impacts of residential-wood-burning particle emissions from a rural European site. The authors investigate the optical and physical properties that connect the aerosol emissions with climate by evaluating atmospheric radiative impacts via simple-forcing calculations. The study contributes to reducing the lack of information on the understanding of the optical properties of air pollution from anthropogenic sources.
Xiangxinyue Meng, Zhijun Wu, Jingchuan Chen, Yanting Qiu, Taomou Zong, Mijung Song, Jiyi Lee, and Min Hu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2399–2414, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2399-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2399-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Our study revealed that particles predominantly exist in a semi-solid or solid state during clean winter days with RH below 30 %. However, a non-liquid to a liquid phase transition occurred when the aerosol liquid water (ALW) mass fraction surpassed 15 % (dry mass) at transition RH thresholds ranging from 40 % to 60 %. We also provide insights into the increasingly important roles of particle phase state variation and ALW in secondary particulate growth during haze formation in Beijing, China.
Bighnaraj Sarangi, Darrel Baumgardner, Ana Isabel Calvo, Benjamin Bolaños-Rosero, Roberto Fraile, Alberto Rodríguez-Fernández, Delia Fernández-González, Carlos Blanco-Alegre, Cátia Gonçalves, Estela D. Vicente, and Olga L. Mayol Bracero
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-446, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-446, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Measurements of fluorescing aerosol particle properties have been made during two major African dust events, one over the island of Puerto Rico and the other over the city of León, Spain The measurements were with two Wideband Integrated Bioaerosol Spectrometers. A significant change in the background aerosol properties, at both locations, is observed when the dust is in the respective regions.
Yiming Wang, Haolin Wang, Yujie Qin, Xinqi Xu, Guowen He, Nanxi Liu, Shengjie Miao, Xiao Lu, Haichao Wang, and Shaojia Fan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2267–2285, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2267-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2267-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We conducted a vertical measurement of winter PM2.5 using a mobile multi-lidar system in four cities. Combined with the surface PM2.5 data, the ERA5 reanalysis data, and GEOS-Chem simulations during Dec 2018–Feb 2019, we found that transport nocturnal PM2.5 enhancement by subsidence (T-NPES) events widely occurred with high frequencies in plains regions in eastern China but happened less often in basin regions like Xi’an and Chengdu. We propose a conceptual model of the T-NPES events.
Dominic Heslin-Rees, Peter Tunved, Johan Ström, Roxana Cremer, Paul Zieger, Ilona Riipinen, Annica M. L. Ekman, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, and Radovan Krejci
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2059–2075, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2059-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2059-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Light-absorbing atmospheric particles (e.g. black carbon – BC) exert a warming effect on the Arctic climate. We show that the amount of particle light absorption decreased from 2002 to 2023. We conclude that in addition to reductions in emissions of BC, wet removal plays a role in the long-term reduction of BC in the Arctic, given the increase in surface precipitation experienced by air masses arriving at the site. The potential impact of biomass burning events is shown to have increased.
Julika Zinke, Ernst Douglas Nilsson, Piotr Markuszewski, Paul Zieger, Eva Monica Mårtensson, Anna Rutgersson, Erik Nilsson, and Matthew Edward Salter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1895–1918, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1895-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1895-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We conducted two research campaigns in the Baltic Sea, during which we combined laboratory sea spray simulation experiments with flux measurements on a nearby island. To combine these two methods, we scaled the laboratory measurements to the flux measurements using three different approaches. As a result, we derived a parameterization that is dependent on wind speed and wave state for particles with diameters 0.015–10 μm. This parameterization is applicable to low-salinity waters.
Sarah Tinorua, Cyrielle Denjean, Pierre Nabat, Thierry Bourrianne, Véronique Pont, François Gheusi, and Emmanuel Leclerc
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1801–1824, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1801-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1801-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
At a French high-altitude site, where many complex interactions between black carbon (BC), radiation, clouds and snow impact climate, 2 years of refractive BC (rBC) and aerosol optical and microphysical measurements have been made. We observed strong seasonal rBC properties variations, with an enhanced absorption in summer compared to winter. The combination of rBC emission sources, transport pathways, atmospheric dynamics and chemical processes explains the rBC light absorption seasonality.
Wenwen Ma, Rong Sun, Xiaoping Wang, Zheng Zong, Shizhen Zhao, Zeyu Sun, Chongguo Tian, Jianhui Tang, Song Cui, Jun Li, and Gan Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1509–1523, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1509-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1509-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This is the first report of long-term atmospheric PAH monitoring around the Bohai Sea. The results showed that the concentrations of PAHs in the atmosphere around the Bohai Sea decreased from June 2014 to May 2019, especially the concentrations of highly toxic PAHs. This indicates that the contributions from PAH sources changed to a certain extent in different areas, and it also led to reductions in the related health risk and medical costs following pollution prevention and control.
Mary C. Robinson, Kaitlin Schueth, and Karin Ardon-Dryer
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-113, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-113, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
On February 26, 2023, New Mexico and West Texas were impacted by a severe dust storm. 21 meteorological stations and 19 PM2.5 and PM10 stations were used to analyze this dust storm. Dust articles were in the air for 18 hours, and dust storm conditions lasted up to 65 minutes. Hourly PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations were up to 518.4 and 9,983 µg m-3, respectively. For Lubbock, Texas the maximum PM2.5 concentrations were the highest ever recorded.
Silke Groß, Volker Freudenthaler, Moritz Haarig, Albert Ansmann, Carlos Toledano, David Mateos, Petra Seibert, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Argyro Nisantzi, Josef Gasteiger, Maximilian Dollner, Anne Tipka, Manuel Schöberl, Marilena Teri, and Bernadett Weinzierl
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-140, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-140, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols contribute to the largest uncertainties in climate change predictions. Especially absorbing aerosols propose difficulties in our understanding. The eastern Mediterranean is a hot spot for aerosols with natural and anthropogenic contributions. We present lidar measurements performed during the A-LIFE field experiment to characterize aerosols and aerosol mixtures. We extend current classification and separation schemes and compare different classification schemes.
Julius Seidler, Markus N. Friedrich, Christoph K. Thomas, and Anke C. Nölscher
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 137–153, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-137-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-137-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Here, we study the transport of ultrafine particles (UFPs) from an airport to two new adjacent measuring sites for 1 year. The number of UFPs in the air and the diurnal variation are typical urban. Winds from the airport show increased number concentrations. Additionally, considering wind frequencies, we estimate that, from all UFPs measured at the two sites, 10 %–14 % originate from the airport and/or other UFP sources from between the airport and site.
Cited articles
4STAR Team, LeBlanc, S., Flynn, C. J., Shinozuka, Y., Segal-Rozenhaimer, M., Pistone, K., Kacenelenbogen, M., Redemann, J., Schmid, B., Russell, P., Livingston, J., and Zhang, Q.: 4STAR_codes: 4STAR processing codes (v1.0.1), Zenodo [code], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1492912, 2018. a
Ackerman, A. S., Kirkpatrick, M. P., Stevens, D. E., and Toon, O. B.: The impact of humidity above stratiform clouds on indirect aerosol climate forcing, Nature, 432, 1014–1017, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03174, 2004. a
Adebiyi, A. A. and Zuidema, P.: The role of the southern African easterly jet in modifying the southeast Atlantic aerosol and cloud environments, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 142, 1574–1589, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.2765, 2016. a
Anderson, T. and Ogren, J.: Determining aerosol radiative properties using the TSI 3563 integrating nephelometer, Aerosol Sci. Tech., 29, 57–69, https://doi.org/10.1080/02786829808965551, 1998. a
Anderson, T., Masonis, S., Covert, D., Ahlquist, N., Howell, S., Clarke, A., and McNaughton, C.: Variability of aerosol optical properties derived from in situ aircraft measurements during ACE-Asia, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 108, 8647, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD003247, 2003. a
Baró Pérez, A., Diamond, M. S., Bender, F. A.-M., Devasthale, A., Schwarz, M., Savre, J., Tonttila, J., Kokkola, H., Lee, H., Painemal, D., and Ekman, A. M. L.: Comparing the simulated influence of biomass burning plumes on low-level clouds over the southeastern Atlantic under varying smoke conditions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4591–4610, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4591-2024, 2024. a, b
Buchard, V., Randles, C. A., da Silva, A. M., Darmenov, A., Colarco, P. R., Govindaraju, R., Ferrare, R., Hair, J., Beyersdorf, A. J., Ziemba, L. D., and Yu, H.: The MERRA-2 Aerosol Reanalysis, 1980 Onward. Part II: Evaluation and Case Studies, J. Climate, 30, 6851–6872, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0613.1, 2017. a
Chang, I., Gao, L., Burton, S. P., Chen, H., Diamond, M. S., Ferrare, R. A., Flynn, C. J., Kacenelenbogen, M., LeBlanc, S. E., Meyer, K. G., Pistone, K., Schmidt, S., Segal-Rozenhaimer, M., Shinozuka, Y., Wood, R., Zuidema, P., Redemann, J., and Christopher, S. A.: Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity of Aerosol and Cloud Properties Over the Southeast Atlantic: An Observational Analysis, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2020GL091469, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091469 2021. a
Che, H., Segal-Rozenhaimer, M., Zhang, L., Dang, C., Zuidema, P., Sedlacek III, A. J., Zhang, X., and Flynn, C.: Seasonal variations in fire conditions are important drivers in the trend of aerosol optical properties over the south-eastern Atlantic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8767–8785, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8767-2022, 2022. a
Cochrane, S. P., Schmidt, K. S., Chen, H., Pilewskie, P., Kittelman, S., Redemann, J., LeBlanc, S., Pistone, K., Segal Rozenhaimer, M., Kacenelenbogen, M., Shinozuka, Y., Flynn, C., Ferrare, R., Burton, S., Hostetler, C., Mallet, M., and Zuidema, P.: Biomass burning aerosol heating rates from the ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) 2016 and 2017 experiments, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 61–77, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-61-2022, 2022. a, b, c, d, e, f
Das, S., Harshvardhan, H., Bian, H., Chin, M., Curci, G., Protonotariou, A. P., Mielonen, T., Zhang, K., Wang, H., and Liu, X.: Biomass burning aerosol transport and vertical distribution over the South African-Atlantic region, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 122, 6391–6415, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD026421, 2017. a
Deaconu, L. T., Ferlay, N., Waquet, F., Peers, F., Thieuleux, F., and Goloub, P.: Satellite inference of water vapour and above-cloud aerosol combined effect on radiative budget and cloud-top processes in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 11613–11634, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11613-2019, 2019. a, b
Doherty, S. J., Saide, P. E., Zuidema, P., Shinozuka, Y., Ferrada, G. A., Gordon, H., Mallet, M., Meyer, K., Painemal, D., Howell, S. G., Freitag, S., Dobracki, A., Podolske, J. R., Burton, S. P., Ferrare, R. A., Howes, C., Nabat, P., Carmichael, G. R., da Silva, A., Pistone, K., Chang, I., Gao, L., Wood, R., and Redemann, J.: Modeled and observed properties related to the direct aerosol radiative effect of biomass burning aerosol over the southeastern Atlantic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1–46, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1-2022, 2022. a
Dunagan, S. E., Johnson, R., Zavaleta, J., Russell, P. B., Schmid, B., Flynn, C., Redemann, J., Shinozuka, Y., Livingston, J., and Segal-Rosenhaimer, M.: Spectrometer for Sky-Scanning Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research (4STAR): Instrument Technology, Remote Sens., 5, 3872–3895, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs5083872, 2013. a
Eck, T. F., Holben, B. N., Reid, J. S., Mukelabai, M. M., Piketh, S. J., Torres, O., Jethva, H. T., Hyer, E. J., Ward, D. E., Dubovik, O., Sinyuk, A., Schafer, J. S., Giles, D. M., Sorokin, M., Smirnov, A., and Slutsker, I.: A seasonal trend of single scattering albedo in southern African biomass-burning particles: Implications for satellite products and estimates of emissions for the world's largest biomass-burning source, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 6414–6432, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50500, 2013. a
Forster, P., Storelvmo, T., Armour, K., Collins, W., Dufresne, J.-L., Frame, D., Lunt, D., Mauritsen, T., Palmer, M., Watanabe, M., Wild, M., and Zhang, H.: The Earth's Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity, book section 7, 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. a
Gelaro, R., McCarty, W., Suárez, M. J., Todling, R., Molod, A., Takacs, L., Randles, C. A., Darmenov, A., Bosilovich, M. G., Reichle, R., Wargan, K., Coy, L., Cullather, R., Draper, C., Akella, S., Buchard, V., Conaty, A., da Silva, A. M., Gu, W., Kim, G.-K., Koster, R., Lucchesi, R., Merkova, D., Nielsen, J. E., Partyka, G., Pawson, S., Putman, W., Rienecker, M., Schubert, S. D., Sienkiewicz, M., and Zhao, B.: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), J. Climate, 30, 5419–5454, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0758.1, 2017. a
Haywood, J., Francis, P., Dubovik, O., Glew, M., and Holben, B.: Comparison of aerosol size distributions, radiative properties, and optical depths determined by aircraft observations and Sun photometers during SAFARI 2000, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 108, 8471, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002250, 2003. a
Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Hirahara, S., Horányi, A., Muñoz‐Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Abdalla, S., Abellan, X., Balsamo, G., Bechtold, P., Biavati, G., Bidlot, J., Bonavita, M., De Chiara, G., Dahlgren, P., Dee, D., Diamantakis, M., Dragani, R., Flemming, J., Forbes, R., Fuentes, M., Geer, A., Haimberger, L., Healy, S., Hogan, R. J., Hólm, E., Janisková, M., Keeley, S., Laloyaux, P., Lopez, P., Lupu, C., Radnoti, G., de Rosnay, P., Rozum, I., Vamborg, F., Villaume, S., and Thépaut, J.-N.: Complete ERA5 from 1940: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Data Store (CDS) [data set], https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.143582cf, 2017. a
Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Hirahara, S., Horányi, A., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Abdalla, S., Abellan, X., Balsamo, G., Bechtold, P., Biavati, G., Bidlot, J., Bonavita, M., De Chiara, G., Dahlgren, P., Dee, D., Diamantakis, M., Dragani, R., Flemming, J., Forbes, R., Fuentes, M., Geer, A., Haimberger, L., Healy, S., Hogan, R. J., Hólm, E., Janisková, M., Keeley, S., Laloyaux, P., Lopez, P., Lupu, C., Radnoti, G., de Rosnay, P., Rozum, I., Vamborg, F., Villaume, S., and Thépaut, J.-N.: The ERA5 global reanalysis, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 146, 1999–2049, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803, 2020. a, b
Inness, A., Ades, M., Agustí-Panareda, A., Barré, J., Benedictow, A., Blechschmidt, A.-M., Dominguez, J. J., Engelen, R., Eskes, H., Flemming, J., Huijnen, V., Jones, L., Kipling, Z., Massart, S., Parrington, M., Peuch, V.-H., Razinger, M., Remy, S., Schulz, M., and Suttie, M.: The CAMS reanalysis of atmospheric composition, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 3515–3556, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3515-2019, 2019 (data available at: https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-global-reanalysis-eac4, last access: 31 August 2021). a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h
Inness, A., Aben, I., Ades, M., Borsdorff, T., Flemming, J., Jones, L., Landgraf, J., Langerock, B., Nedelec, P., Parrington, M., and Ribas, R.: Assimilation of S5P/TROPOMI carbon monoxide data with the global CAMS near-real-time system, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 14355–14376, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-14355-2022, 2022. a, b
Johnson, B. T. and Haywood, J. M.: Assessing the Impact of Self-Lofting on Increasing the Altitude of Black Carbon in a Global Climate Model, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 128, e2022JD038039, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JD038039, 2023. a
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. a
LeBlanc, S. E., Redemann, J., Flynn, C., Pistone, K., Kacenelenbogen, M., Segal-Rosenheimer, M., Shinozuka, Y., Dunagan, S., Dahlgren, R. P., Meyer, K., Podolske, J., Howell, S. G., Freitag, S., Small-Griswold, J., Holben, B., Diamond, M., Wood, R., Formenti, P., Piketh, S., Maggs-Kölling, G., Gerber, M., and Namwoonde, A.: Above-cloud aerosol optical depth from airborne observations in the southeast Atlantic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1565–1590, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1565-2020, 2020. a, b, c
Liu, X., Huey, L. G., Yokelson, R. J., Selimovic, V., Simpson, I. J., Müller, M., Jimenez, J. L., Campuzano-Jost, P., Beyersdorf, A. J., Blake, D. R., Butterfield, Z., Choi, Y., Crounse, J. D., Day, D. A., Diskin, G. S., Dubey, M. K., Fortner, E., Hanisco, T. F., Hu, W., King, L. E., Kleinman, L., Meinardi, S., Mikoviny, T., Onasch, T. B., Palm, B. B., Peischl, J., Pollack, I. B., Ryerson, T. B., Sachse, G. W., Sedlacek, A. J., Shilling, J. E., Springston, S., St. Clair, J. M., Tanner, D. J., Teng, A. P., Wennberg, P. O., Wisthaler, A., and Wolfe, G. M.: Airborne measurements of western U.S. wildfire emissions: Comparison with prescribed burning and air quality implications, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 122, 6108–6129, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD026315, 2017. a
Magi, B. and Hobbs, P.: Effects of humidity on aerosols in southern Africa during the biomass burning season, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 108, 8495, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002144, 2003. a
McNaughton, C. S., Clarke, A. D., Freitag, S., Kapustin, V. N., Kondo, Y., Moteki, N., Sahu, L., Takegawa, N., Schwarz, J. P., Spackman, J. R., Watts, L., Diskin, G., Podolske, J., Holloway, J. S., Wisthaler, A., Mikoviny, T., de Gouw, J., Warneke, C., Jimenez, J., Cubison, M., Howell, S. G., Middlebrook, A., Bahreini, R., Anderson, B. E., Winstead, E., Thornhill, K. L., Lack, D., Cozic, J., and Brock, C. A.: Absorbing aerosol in the troposphere of the Western Arctic during the 2008 ARCTAS/ARCPAC airborne field campaigns, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 7561–7582, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-7561-2011, 2011. a
Morcrette, J.-J., Boucher, O., Jones, L., Salmond, D., Bechtold, P., Beljaars, A., Benedetti, A., Bonet, A., Kaiser, J. W., Razinger, M., Schulz, M., Serrar, S., Simmons, A. J., Sofiev, M., Suttie, M., Tompkins, A. M., and Untch, A.: Aerosol analysis and forecast in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Integrated Forecast System: Forward modeling, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 114, D06206, https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD011235, 2009. a
ORACLES Science Team: Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2016, Version 1, NASA Ames Earth Science Project Office (ESPO), Moffett Field, CA [data set], https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2016_V1, 2017. a
ORACLES Science Team: Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2017, Version 1, NASA Ames Earth Science Project Office (ESPO), Moffett Field, CA [data set], https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2017_V1, 2019a. a
ORACLES Science Team: Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2018, Version 1, NASA Ames Earth Science Project Office (ESPO), Moffett Field, CA [data set], https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2018_V1, 2019b. a
Pistone, K., Redemann, J., Doherty, S., Zuidema, P., Burton, S., Cairns, B., Cochrane, S., Ferrare, R., Flynn, C., Freitag, S., Howell, S. G., Kacenelenbogen, M., LeBlanc, S., Liu, X., Schmidt, K. S., Sedlacek III, A. J., Segal-Rozenhaimer, M., Shinozuka, Y., Stamnes, S., van Diedenhoven, B., Van Harten, G., and Xu, F.: Intercomparison of biomass burning aerosol optical properties from in situ and remote-sensing instruments in ORACLES-2016, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 9181–9208, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9181-2019, 2019. a, b
Pistone, K., Zuidema, P., Wood, R., Diamond, M., da Silva, A. M., Ferrada, G., Saide, P. E., Ueyama, R., Ryoo, J.-M., Pfister, L., Podolske, J., Noone, D., Bennett, R., Stith, E., Carmichael, G., Redemann, J., Flynn, C., LeBlanc, S., Segal-Rozenhaimer, M., and Shinozuka, Y.: Exploring the elevated water vapor signal associated with the free tropospheric biomass burning plume over the southeast Atlantic Ocean, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9643–9668, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021, 2021. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r
Provencal, R., Gupta, M., Owano, T. G., Baer, D. S., Ricci, K. N., O'Keefe, A., and Podolske, J. R.: Cavity-enhanced quantum-cascade laser-based instrument for carbon monoxide measurements, Appl. Opt., 44, 6712–6717, https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.44.006712, 2005. a
Randles, C. A., da Silva, A. M., Buchard, V., Colarco, P. R., Darmenov, A., Govindaraju, R., Smirnov, A., Holben, B., Ferrare, R., Hair, J., Shinozuka, Y., and Flynn, C. J.: The MERRA-2 Aerosol Reanalysis, 1980 Onward. Part I: System Description and Data Assimilation Evaluation, J. Climate, 30, 6823–6850, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0609.1, 2017. a
Redemann, J., Wood, R., Zuidema, P., Doherty, S. J., Luna, B., LeBlanc, S. E., Diamond, M. S., Shinozuka, Y., Chang, I. Y., Ueyama, R., Pfister, L., Ryoo, J.-M., Dobracki, A. N., da Silva, A. M., Longo, K. M., Kacenelenbogen, M. S., Flynn, C. J., Pistone, K., Knox, N. M., Piketh, S. J., Haywood, J. M., Formenti, P., Mallet, M., Stier, P., Ackerman, A. S., Bauer, S. E., Fridlind, A. M., Carmichael, G. R., Saide, P. E., Ferrada, G. A., Howell, S. G., Freitag, S., Cairns, B., Holben, B. N., Knobelspiesse, K. D., Tanelli, S., L'Ecuyer, T. S., Dzambo, A. M., Sy, O. O., McFarquhar, G. M., Poellot, M. R., Gupta, S., O'Brien, J. R., Nenes, A., Kacarab, M., Wong, J. P. S., Small-Griswold, J. D., Thornhill, K. L., Noone, D., Podolske, J. R., Schmidt, K. S., Pilewskie, P., Chen, H., Cochrane, S. P., Sedlacek, A. J., Lang, T. J., Stith, E., Segal-Rozenhaimer, M., Ferrare, R. A., Burton, S. P., Hostetler, C. A., Diner, D. J., Seidel, F. C., Platnick, S. E., Myers, J. S., Meyer, K. G., Spangenberg, D. A., Maring, H., and Gao, L.: An overview of the ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) project: aerosol–cloud–radiation interactions in the southeast Atlantic basin, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1507–1563, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1507-2021, 2021. a, b, c, d, e
Ryoo, J.-M., Pfister, L., Ueyama, R., Zuidema, P., Wood, R., Chang, I., and Redemann, J.: A meteorological overview of the ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) campaign over the southeastern Atlantic during 2016–2018: Part 1 – Climatology, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16689–16707, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16689-2021, 2021. a, b, c, d, e
Ryoo, J.-M., Pfister, L., Ueyama, R., Zuidema, P., Wood, R., Chang, I., and Redemann, J.: A meteorological overview of the ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) campaign over the southeastern Atlantic during 2016–2018: Part 2 – Daily and synoptic characteristics, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 14209–14241, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-14209-2022, 2022. a, b, c
Schelbergen, M., Kalverla, P. C., Schmehl, R., and Watson, S. J.: Clustering wind profile shapes to estimate airborne wind energy production, Wind Energ. Sci., 5, 1097–1120, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-5-1097-2020, 2020. a
Segal-Rosenheimer, M., Russell, P. B., Schmid, B., Redemann, J., Livingston, J. M., Flynn, C. J., Johnson, R. R., Dunagan, S. E., Shinozuka, Y., Herman, J., Cede, A., Abuhassan, N., Comstock, J. M., Hubbe, J. M., Zelenyuk, A., and Wilson, J.: Tracking elevated pollution layers with a newly developed hyperspectral Sun/Sky spectrometer (4STAR): Results from the TCAP 2012 and 2013 campaigns, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 119, 2611–2628, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD020884, 2014. a
Shinozuka, Y., Saide, P. E., Ferrada, G. A., Burton, S. P., Ferrare, R., Doherty, S. J., Gordon, H., Longo, K., Mallet, M., Feng, Y., Wang, Q., Cheng, Y., Dobracki, A., Freitag, S., Howell, S. G., LeBlanc, S., Flynn, C., Segal-Rosenhaimer, M., Pistone, K., Podolske, J. R., Stith, E. J., Bennett, J. R., Carmichael, G. R., da Silva, A., Govindaraju, R., Leung, R., Zhang, Y., Pfister, L., Ryoo, J.-M., Redemann, J., Wood, R., and Zuidema, P.: Modeling the smoky troposphere of the southeast Atlantic: a comparison to ORACLES airborne observations from September of 2016, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11491–11526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11491-2020, 2020. a, b
Shinozuka, Y., Johnson, R. R., Flynn, C. J., Russell, P. B., Schmid, B., Redemann, J., Dunagan, S. E., Kluzek, C. D., Hubbe, J. M., Segal-Rosenheimer, M., Livingston, J. M., Eck, T. F., Wagener, R., Gregory, L., Chand, D., Berg, L. K., Rogers, R. R., Ferrare, R. A., Hair, J. W., Hostetler, C. A., and Burton, S. P.: Hyperspectral aerosol optical depths from TCAP flights, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 12180–12194, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD020596, 2013. a
Szopa, S., Naik, V., Adhikary, B., Artaxo, P., Berntsen, T., Collins, W., Fuzzi, S., Gallardo, L., Kiendler-Scharr, A., Klimont, Z., Liao, H., Unger, N., and Zanis, P.: Short-Lived Climate Forcers, 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, 817–922, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.008, 2021. a
Virkkula, A.: Correction of the Calibration of the 3-wavelength Particle Soot Absorption Photometer (3 PSAP), Aerosol Sci. Tech., 44, 706–712, https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2010.482110, 2010. a
Wilcox, E. M.: Stratocumulus cloud thickening beneath layers of absorbing smoke aerosol, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 11769–11777, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-11769-2010, 2010. a
Wilcox, E. M., Thomas, R. M., Praveen, P. S., Pistone, K., Bender, F. A.-M., and Ramanathan, V.: Black carbon solar absorption suppresses turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 113, 11794–11799, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1525746113, 2016. a
Zuidema, P., Chang, P., Medeiros, B., Kirtman, B. P., Mechoso, R., Schneider, E. K., Toniazzo, T., Richter, I., Small, R. J., Bellomo, K., Brandt, P., de Szoeke, S., Farrar, J. T., Jung, E., Kato, S., Li, M., Patricola, C., Wang, Z., Wood, R., and Xu, Z.: Challenges and Prospects for Reducing Coupled Climate Model SST Biases in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: The U.S. CLIVAR Eastern Tropical Oceans Synthesis Working Group, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 97, 2305–2328, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00274.1, 2016. a
Short summary
The springtime southeast Atlantic atmosphere contains lots of smoke from continental fires. This smoke travels with water vapor; more smoke means more humidity. We use aircraft observations and models to describe how the values change through the season and over the region. We sort the atmosphere into different types by vertical structure and amount of smoke and humidity. Since our work shows how frequently these components coincide, it helps to better quantify heating effects over this region.
The springtime southeast Atlantic atmosphere contains lots of smoke from continental fires. This...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint