Evidence of cloud sensitivity to above-cloud CCN as a function of environmental stability in the Southeast Atlantic based on remote sensing observations

Lenhardt, Emily D.; Gao, Lan; Gupta, Siddhant; McFarquhar, Greg M.; Xu, Feng; Ferrare, Richard A.; Hostetler, Chris A.; Redemann, Jens

doi:10.5194/acp-26-11709-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11709-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-11709-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 16

Research article

|

19 Aug 2026

Research article |

| 19 Aug 2026

Evidence of cloud sensitivity to above-cloud CCN as a function of environmental stability in the Southeast Atlantic based on remote sensing observations

Emily D. Lenhardt, Lan Gao, Siddhant Gupta, Greg M. McFarquhar, Feng Xu, Richard A. Ferrare, Chris A. Hostetler, and Jens Redemann

Data sets

Machine Learning Predicted CCN Concentration for ORACLES ACI Study L. Gao et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18626083

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2016, Version 3 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2016_V3

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard ER2 During ORACLES 2016, Version 3 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/ER2/2016_V3

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2017, Version 3 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2017_V3

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2018, Version 3 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2018_V3

Short summary

Interactions between clouds and small particles in the atmosphere can cause changes to cloud properties, such as how much of the sun's energy they reflect and whether precipitation is likely to occur. Here we use a new machine learning dataset to investigate these interactions using observations from the Southeast Atlantic. We find that smoke particles above cloud tops have a strong impact on cloud properties in stable environments. This method can also be applied to satellite data.