Estimating Twomey forcing sensitivity  to aerosol plume spreading rates

McMichael, Lucas A.; Erfani, Ehsan; Wood, Robert; von Salzen, Knut

doi:10.5194/acp-26-14111-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14111-2026

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14111-2026

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

Articles | Volume 26, issue 19

Research article

|

09 Oct 2026

Research article |

| 09 Oct 2026

Estimating Twomey forcing sensitivity to aerosol plume spreading rates

Lucas A. McMichael, Ehsan Erfani, Robert Wood, and Knut von Salzen

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14111-2026-supplement

Data sets

Library of Lagrangian Large Eddy Simulations for Studying Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in Northeast Pacific Ehsan Erfani et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20097959

Model code and software

SAM v6.10.9 for Mechanism Denial Simulations Lucas A. McMichael and Peter N. Blossey https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14895699

lmcmichael/ParticleModel2D_Twomey: ParticleModel2D_Twomey Lucas A. McMichael https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20145149

Download

Article (9895 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

This study explores how aerosol plumes spread in marine clouds and how that affects cloud brightening. Changes in turbulence strongly affect plume spreading rates, but have little effect on the overall brightening in the cases studied. The main uncertainties are aerosol lifetime and how clouds adjust to the aerosols. Climate models often assume that plumes spread instantly, and we find that this may overestimate cooling in some cases.