Aerosol effects on deep convective clouds: impact of changes in aerosol size distribution and aerosol activation parameterization

Abstract. A cloud-resolving model including explicit aerosol physics and chemistry is used to study the impact of aerosols on deep convective strength. More specifically, by conducting six sensitivity series we examine how the complexity of the aerosol model, the size of the aerosols and the aerosol activation parameterization influence the aerosol-induced deep convective cloud sensitivity. Only aerosol effects on liquid droplet formation are considered. We find that an increased aerosol concentration generally results in stronger convection, which for the simulated case is in agreement with the conceptual model presented by Rosenfeld et al. (2008). However, there are two sensitivity series that do not display a monotonic increase in updraft velocity with increasing aerosol concentration. These exceptions illustrate the need to: 1) account for changes in evaporation processes and subsequent cooling when assessing aerosol effects on deep convective strength, 2) better understand graupel impaction scavenging of aerosols which may limit the number of CCN at a critical stage of cloud development and thereby dampen the convection, 3) increase our knowledge of aerosol recycling due to evaporation of cloud droplets. Furthermore, we find a significant difference in the aerosol-induced deep convective cloud sensitivity when using different complexities of the aerosol model and different aerosol activation parameterizations. For the simulated case, a 100% increase in aerosol concentration results in a difference in average updraft between the various sensitivity series which is as large as the average updraft increase itself. The model simulations also show that the change in graupel and rain formation is not necessarily directly proportional to the change in updraft velocity. For example, several of the sensitivity series display a decrease of the rain amount at the lowest model level with increasing updraft velocity. Finally, an increased number of aerosols in the Aitken mode (here defined by 23 nm≤d≤100.0 nm) may result in a larger impact on the convective strength compared to an increased number of aerosols in the accumulation mode (here defined by 100 nm≤d≤900.0 nm). When accumulation mode aerosols are activated and grow at the beginning of the cloud cycle, the supersaturation near the cloud base is lowered which to some extent limits further aerosol activation.