Coarse-mode sea spray aerosols enhance warm rain formation in marine low clouds

Mifsud, Katherine; Barr, Jason; Wood, Robert; Choi, Yonghoon; Crosbie, Ewan; Diskin, Glenn S.; DiGangi, Joshua P.; Moore, Richard H.; Robinson, Claire; Shook, Michael A.; Sorooshian, Armin; Voigt, Christiane; Ziemba, Luke

doi:10.5194/acp-26-14881-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14881-2026

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14881-2026

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

Articles | Volume 26, issue 20

Research article

|

23 Oct 2026

Research article |

| 23 Oct 2026

Coarse-mode sea spray aerosols enhance warm rain formation in marine low clouds

Katherine Mifsud, Jason Barr, Robert Wood, Yonghoon Choi, Ewan Crosbie, Glenn S. Diskin, Joshua P. DiGangi, Richard H. Moore, Claire Robinson, Michael A. Shook, Armin Sorooshian, Christiane Voigt, and Luke Ziemba

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Final revised paper (published on 23 Oct 2026)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Jun 2026)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2026-3027', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Jul 2026

Please find my comments attached.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3027-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Katherine Mifsud, 15 Jul 2026
  
  We thank the reviewer (R1) for their thoughtful and constructive review of our manuscript. In response to these comments, we will revise the manuscript to distinguish between GCCN number concentration and GCCN mass concentration and consistently use the notation 𝑁_d›2 and 𝑀_d›2 when appropriate. We will explicitly define the variables used in Figure 7 and include an additional version of Figure 9 as a scatterplot to make the temporal relationships more apparent. This will be included in the supplemental section.
  We thank the reviewer again for their careful review and for the time they devoted to providing these comments.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3027-AC1
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-3027', Anonymous Referee #2, 22 Jul 2026

Please see the attachment.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3027-RC2

Peer review completion

AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload

AR by Katherine Mifsud on behalf of the Authors (29 Sep 2026) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (06 Oct 2026) by Luis A. Ladino

AR by Katherine Mifsud on behalf of the Authors (10 Oct 2026) Manuscript

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Short summary

Salt particles from the ocean can help marine clouds precipitate more quickly, but their role is not fully understood. Using aircraft observations over the northwest Atlantic Ocean and computer simulations, we studied how these particles affect warm rain formation. We found that clouds containing more large sea salt particles, even at relatively low amounts, produce more rain. These results improve understanding of how sea salt aerosols influence clouds, rainfall, and climate.