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[1] Knowledge of long-range transport and vertical distribution of Asian dust aerosols in the free troposphere is important for estimating their impact on climate. Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), surface micropulse lidar (MPL), and standard surface measurements are used to directly observe the long-range transport and vertical distribution of Asian dust aerosols in the free troposphere during the Pacific Dust Experiment (PACDEX). The MPL measurements were made at the Loess Plateau (35.95°N, 104.1°E) near the major dust source regions of the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts. Dust events are more frequent in the Taklamakan, where floating dust dominates, while more intensive, less frequent dust storms are more common in the Gobi region. The vertical distribution of the CALIPSO backscattering/depolarization ratios indicate that nonspherically shaped dust aerosols floated from near the ground to an altitude of approximately 9 km around the source regions. This suggests the possible long-range transport of entrained dust aerosols via upper tropospheric westerly jets. A very distinct large depolarization layer was also identified between 8 and 10 km over eastern China and the western Pacific Ocean corresponding to dust aerosols transported from the Taklamakan and Gobi areas, as confirmed by back trajectory analyses. The combination of these dust sources results in a two-layer or multilayered dust structure over eastern China and the western Pacific Ocean.

Rising global air traffic and its associated contrails have the potential for affecting climate via radiative forcing. Current estimates of contrail climate effects are based on coverage by linear contrails that do not account for spreading and, therefore, represent the minimum impact. The maximum radiative impact is estimated by assuming that long-term trends in cirrus coverage are due entirely to air traffic in areas where humidity is relatively constant. Surface observations from 1971 to 1995 show that cirrus increased significantly over the northern oceans and the United States while decreasing over other land areas except over western Europe where cirrus coverage was relatively constant. The surface observations are consistent with satellite-derived trends over most areas. Land cirrus trends are positively correlated with upper-tropospheric (300 hPa) humidity (UTH), derived from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) analyses, except over the United States and western Europe where air traffic is heaviest. Over oceans, the cirrus trends are negatively correlated with the NCEP relative humidity suggesting some large uncertainties in the maritime UTH. The NCEP UTH decreased dramatically over Europe while remaining relatively steady over the United States, thereby permitting an assessment of the cirrus-contrail relationship over the United States. Seasonal cirrus changes over the United States are generally consistent with the annual cycle of contrail coverage and frequency lending additional evidence to the role of contrails in the observed trend. It is concluded that the U.S. cirrus trends are most likely due to air traffic. The cirrus increase is a factor of 1.8 greater than that expected from current estimates of linear contrail coverage suggesting that a spreading factor of the same magnitude can be used to estimate the maximum effect of the contrails. From the U.S. results and using mean contrail optical depths of 0.15 and 0.25, the maximum contrail-cirrus global radiative forcing is estimated to be 0.006-0.025 W m Ϫ2 depending on the radiative forcing model. Using results from a general circulation model simulation of contrails, the cirrus trends over the United States are estimated to cause a tropospheric warming of 0.2Њ-0.3ЊC decade Ϫ1 , a range that includes the observed tropospheric temperature trend of 0.27ЊC decade Ϫ1 between 1975 and 1994. The magnitude of the estimated surface temperature change and the seasonal variations of the estimated temperature trends are also in good agreement with the corresponding observations.

[1] The semi-direct effects of dust aerosols are analyzed over eastern Asia using 2 years (June 2002 to June 2004 The results show that the water path of dust-contaminated clouds is considerably smaller than that of dust-free clouds. The mean ice water path (IWP) and liquid water path (LWP) of dusty clouds are less than their dust-free counterparts by 23.7% and 49.8%, respectively. The long-term statistical relationship derived from ISCCP also confirms that there is significant negative correlation between dust storm index and ISCCP cloud water path (CWP). These results suggest that dust aerosols warm clouds, increase the evaporation of cloud droplets and further reduce the CWP, the so-called semi-direct effect. The semi-direct effect may play a role in cloud development over arid and semi-arid areas of East Asia and contribute to the reduction of precipitation.

Abstract. Mineral dust aerosols often observed over California in winter and spring, associated with long-range transport from Asia and the Sahara, have been linked to enhanced precipitation based on observations. Local anthropogenic pollution, on the other hand, was shown in previous observational and modeling studies to reduce precipitation. Here we incorporate recent developments in ice nucleation parameterizations to link aerosols with ice crystal formation in a spectral-bin cloud microphysical model coupled with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in order to examine the relative and combined impacts of dust and local pollution particles on cloud properties and precipitation type and intensity. Simulations are carried out for two cloud cases (from the CalWater 2011 field campaign) with contrasting meteorology and cloud dynamics that occurred on 16 February (FEB16) and 2 March (MAR02). In both cases, observations show the presence of dust and biological particles in a relative pristine environment. The simulated cloud microphysical properties and precipitation show reasonable agreement with aircraft and surface measurements. Model sensitivity experiments indicate that in the pristine environment, the dust and biological aerosol layers increase the accumulated precipitation by 10–20% from the Central Valley to the Sierra Nevada for both FEB16 and MAR02 due to a ~40% increase in snow formation, validating the observational hypothesis. Model results show that local pollution increases precipitation over the windward slope of the mountains by a few percent due to increased snow formation when dust is present, but reduces precipitation by 5–8% if dust is removed on FEB16. The effects of local pollution on cloud microphysics and precipitation strongly depend on meteorology, including cloud dynamics and the strength of the Sierra Barrier Jet. This study further underscores the importance of the interactions between local pollution, dust, and environmental conditions for assessing aerosol effects on cold-season precipitation in California.