More or Less: How Do Inhomogeneous Sea‐Salt Aerosols Affect the Precipitation of Landfalling Tropical Cyclones?

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are one of the severe weather systems, which often cause huge economic losses and casualties with extreme winds, storm surges, and/or torrential rainfall in the coastal regions and on some inlands (M. Wang et al., 2021;Yu, 2015). Accurate forecast of TC rainfall is necessary for management of fresh water resources and rainfall-induced disaster warning system (Wu et al., 2018).In recent years, many progresses have been made in TC track forecasting, owing to the advancements in observational technology, numerical models and our understanding of underlying physics. However, the improvements in TC intensity and precipitation forecasts are nearly stagnant (DeMaria et al., 2005). TC rainfall remains challenging for deep scientific understanding in the research community and operational forecasts worldwide.Anthropogenic and natural aerosols are recognized as significant substances affecting the radiation budget and static stability of the atmosphere (Forster et al., 2021). There are two dominant mechanisms by which aerosols affect weather and climate: aerosol-radiation interactions (ARI) and aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI). ARI arises from aerosol scattering and absorption, which alters the radiation budget in the atmosphere, while ACI is rooted in the fact that aerosols serve as cloud condensation and ice nuclei (Li et al., 2017). During the past decades, a large number of studies on ACI were carried out. It was found that aerosols substantially affect cloud microphysics and consequently the rate of latent heat release, dynamics, and finally the precipitation of convective storms (A. P.

Optical Characterization of Marine Aerosols Using a Morphologically Realistic Model With Varying Water Content: Implications for Lidar Applications and Passive Polarimetric Remote Sensing

“…Also, accounting for the impact of inhomogeneity in brine-coated salt aerosols on optical properties can be important for modeling the direct radiative forcing effect of marine aerosols (Z. Wang et al, 2019) and the radiative impact on precipitation in tropical cyclones (Zhu et al, 2022).…”

“…This study is of high relevance for the interpretation of observations by the Aerosol and Carbon dioxide Detection Lidar onboard the DQ‐1 satellite, a High Spectral Resolution Lidar with polarization detection capabilities, which uses wavelengths of 532 and 1,064 nm (Dai et al., 2023; Liu et al., 2023). Also, accounting for the impact of inhomogeneity in brine‐coated salt aerosols on optical properties can be important for modeling the direct radiative forcing effect of marine aerosols (Z. Wang et al., 2019) and the radiative impact on precipitation in tropical cyclones (Zhu et al., 2022).…”