Quantifying the aerosol/cloud-mediated radiative effect at a global scale requires simultaneous satellite retrievals of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations and cloud base updraft velocities (W b ). Hitherto, the inability to do so has been a major cause of high uncertainty regarding anthropogenic aerosol/cloud-mediated radiative forcing. This can be addressed by the emerging capability of estimating CCN and W b of boundary layer convective clouds from an operational polar orbiting weather satellite. Our methodology uses such clouds as an effective analog for CCN chambers. The cloud base supersaturation (S) is determined by W b and the satellite-retrieved cloud base drop concentrations (N db ), which is the same as CCN(S). Validation against ground-based CCN instruments at Oklahoma, at Manaus, and onboard a ship in the northeast Pacific showed a retrieval accuracy of ±25% to ±30% for individual satellite overpasses. The methodology is presently limited to boundary layer not raining convective clouds of at least 1 km depth that are not obscured by upper layer clouds, including semitransparent cirrus. The limitation for small solar backscattering angles of <25°restricts the satellite coverage to ∼25% of the world area in a single day. (1) states that the uncertainty in aerosol/cloud interactions dominates the uncertainty about the degree of influence that human activities have on climate. Because clouds form in ascending air currents, whereas cloud droplets nucleate on aerosols that serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), we need accurate measurements of both updrafts and CCN supersaturation (S) spectra before we can disentangle aerosol effects on cloud radiative forcing (CRF) from dynamical effects. Need for Global Measurements of Cloud Base Updrafts and CCN(S)Tackling the global change problems as identified by the IPCC requires that these quantities be measured on a global scale. However, satellites have not been able to measure updraft speed of the air that forms the clouds or the concentrations of aerosols that are capable of forming cloud drops, which are ingested into the clouds as they grow. Lack of such fundamental quantities has greatly hindered our capability of disentangling the effects of meteorology and anthropogenic aerosol emissions on cloud properties (2). This situation is starting to change with our recently developed methodology to retrieve updrafts at cloud base (3, 4) using the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. This satellite is sun-synchronous, with an overpass time near 13:30 solar time.Missing such fundamental quantities as CCN(S) and cloud base updraft W b has been preventing us from disentangling the effects of aerosols from atmospheric dynamics (i.e., meteorology). Their absence also has limited our ability to validate the hypothesized impacts of added aerosols on a large range of phenomena, including (i) maintaining full cloud cover in marine stratocumulus, thus incurring a str...
[1] Heavy aerosol loads have been observed to suppress warm rain by reducing cloud drop size and slowing drop coalescence. The ice forming nuclei (IFN) activity of the same aerosols glaciate the clouds and create ice precipitation instead of the suppressed warm rain. Satellite observations show that desert dust and heavy air pollution over East Asia have similar ability to glaciate the tops of growing convective clouds at glaciation temperature of Tg < ∼ −20°C, whereas similarly heavy smoke from forest fires in Siberia without dust or industrial pollution glaciated clouds at Tg ≤ −33°C. The observation that both smoke and air pollution have same effect on reducing cloud drop size implies that the difference in Tg is due to the IFN activity. This dependence of Tg on aerosol types appears only for clouds with r e-5 < 12 mm (r e-5 is the cloud drop effective radius at the −5°C isotherm, above which ice rarely forms in cloud tops). For the rest of the clouds the glaciation temperature increases strongly with r e-5 with little relation to the aerosol types, reaching Tg> ∼ −15°C for the largest r e-5 , which are typical to marine clouds in pristine atmosphere. Citation:
Abstract. VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging RadiometerSuite), onboard the Suomi NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite, has an improved resolution of 750 m with respect to the 1000 m of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer for the channels that allow retrieving cloud microphysical parameters such as cloud drop effective radius (r e ). VIIRS also has an imager with five channels of double resolution of 375 m, which was not designed for retrieving cloud products. A methodology for a high-resolution retrieval of r e and microphysical presentation of the cloud field based on the VIIRS imager was developed and evaluated with respect to MODIS in this study. The tripled microphysical resolution with respect to MODIS allows obtaining new insights for cloud-aerosol interactions, especially at the smallest cloud scales, because the VIIRS imager can resolve the small convective elements that are sub-pixel for MODIS cloud products. Examples are given for new insights into ship tracks in marine stratocumulus, pollution tracks from point and diffused sources in stratocumulus and cumulus clouds over land, deep tropical convection in pristine air mass over ocean and land, tropical clouds that develop in smoke from forest fires and in heavy pollution haze over densely populated regions in southeastern Asia, and for pyrocumulonimbus clouds.It is found that the VIIRS imager provides more robust physical interpretation and refined information for cloud and aerosol microphysics as compared to MODIS, especially in the initial stage of cloud formation. VIIRS is found to identify significantly more fully cloudy pixels when small boundary layer convective elements are present. This, in turn, allows for a better quantification of cloud-aerosol interactions and impacts on precipitation-forming processes.
Abstract. The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) onboard the Suomi NPP (National Polar-Orbiting Partnership) satellite has improved resolution of 750 m with respect to 1000 m of the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, for the channels that allow retrieving cloud microphysical parameters such as cloud drop effective radius (re). The VIIRS has also an imager with 5 channels of double resolution of 375 m, which was not designed for retrieving cloud products. A methodology for a high resolution retrieval of re and microphysical presentation of the cloud field based on the VIIRS imager was developed and evaluated with respect to MODIS in this study. The tripled microphysical resolution with respect to MODIS allows obtaining new insights for cloud aerosol interactions, especially at the smallest cloud scales, because the VIIRS imager can resolve the small convective elements that are sub-pixel for MODIS cloud products. Examples are given for new insights on ship tracks in marine stratocumulus, pollution tracks from point and diffused sources in stratocumulus and cumulus clouds over land, deep tropical convection in pristine air mass over ocean and land, tropical clouds that develop in smoke from forest fires and in heavy pollution haze over densely populated regions in southeast Asia, and for pyro-cumulonimbus clouds. It is found that the VIIRS imager provides more robust physical interpretation and refined information for cloud and aerosol microphysics as compared to MODIS, especially in the initial stage of cloud formation. VIIRS is found to identify much more full-cloudy pixels when small boundary layer convective elements are present. This, in turn, allows a better quantification of cloud aerosol interactions and impacts on precipitation forming processes.
The aerosol effects on clouds and precipitation in deep convective cloud systems are investigated using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model with the Morrison two-moment bulk microphysics scheme. Considering positive or negative relationships between the cloud droplet number concentration (Nc) and spectral dispersion (ε), a suite of sensitivity experiments are performed using an initial sounding data of the deep convective cloud system on 31 March 2005 in Beijing under either a maritime (‘clean’) or continental (‘polluted’) background. Numerical experiments in this study indicate that the sign of the surface precipitation response induced by aerosols is dependent on the ε−Nc relationships, which can influence the autoconversion processes from cloud droplets to rain drops. When the spectral dispersion ε is an increasing function of Nc, the domain-average cumulative precipitation increases with aerosol concentrations from maritime to continental background. That may be because the existence of large-sized rain drops can increase precipitation at high aerosol concentration. However, the surface precipitation is reduced with increasing concentrations of aerosol particles when ε is a decreasing function of Nc. For the ε−Nc negative relationships, smaller spectral dispersion suppresses the autoconversion processes, reduces the rain water content and eventually decreases the surface precipitation under polluted conditions. Although differences in the surface precipitation between polluted and clean backgrounds are small for all the ε−Nc relationships, additional simulations show that our findings are robust to small perturbations in the initial thermal conditions
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