Aircraft in-situ measurements from SOCRATES constrain the anthropogenic perturbations of cloud droplet number

Song, Ci; McCoy, Daniel T.; McCoy, Isabel L.; Brown, Hunter; Gettelman, Andrew; Eidhammer, Trude; Barahona, Donifan

doi:10.5194/acp-25-16063-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 22

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-16063-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-16063-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 22

Research article

|

19 Nov 2025

Research article |

| 19 Nov 2025

Aircraft in-situ measurements from SOCRATES constrain the anthropogenic perturbations of cloud droplet number

Ci Song, Daniel T. McCoy, Isabel L. McCoy, Hunter Brown, Andrew Gettelman, Trude Eidhammer, and Donifan Barahona

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-16063-2025-supplement

Data sets

SOCRATES: Low Rate (LRT - 1 sps) Navigation, State Parameter, and Microphysics Flight-Level Data. Version 1.4 NSF NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory https://doi.org/10.5065/D6M32TM9

Daily MODIS (MODerate Imaging Spectroradiometer) derived cloud droplet number concentration global dataset for 2003-2015 D. P. Grosvenor and R. Wood https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/cf97ccc802d348ec8a3b6f2995dfbbff

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Short summary

This study examines how aerosols from human activities alter cloud microphysical properties. Airborne observations from a field campaign are used to constrain an ensemble of global model configurations and their associated cloud property changes. Results show that airborne in-situ measurements of aerosol and cloud properties do provide insight into global changes in cloud microphysics but are sensitive to uncertainties in both airborne measurements and Earth system model emulators.