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Aerosol-Cloud Interactions

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A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2019) | Viewed by 23836

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Nan Ma

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Guest Editor

Institute for Environment and Climate Research, Jinan University, Guagzhou 511443, China
Interests: physico-chemical properties of atmospheric aerosol; aerosol-cloud interactions; black and brown carbon aerosol; aerosol health effect; aerosol measurement techniques

Prof. Dr. Qiaoqiao Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Institute for Environmental and Climate Research, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
Interests: black carbon; brown carbon; climate change; model simulation

Prof. Dr. Zhibin Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Interests: new particle formation; secondary organic aerosol; hygroscopicity; cloud condensation nuclei

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Clouds determine the budget of the Earth’s radiation energy to a large extent and the distribution of precipitation, therefore plays a dominant role in our climate system. Atmospheric aerosol, originated from natural and anthropogenic emission sources, are known to impact the formation, microphysical properties and the life cycles of clouds via various processes. Understanding and quantifying the interactions between aerosols and clouds are one of the major challenges in evaluating and predicting the impact of human activities on climate change.

In the past few decades, a wide range of studies have been focusing on aerosol–cloud interactions via observations, laboratory experiments, as well as model simulations. Currently known interactions between aerosols and clouds consist of several facets. By acting as cloud condensation nuclei, high concentration of aerosol particles can result in an increased number of liquid cloud droplets with reduced sizes for the same liquid water path, and further lead to an increase in cloud optical thickness, as well as cloud albedo. Similarly, due to the capability of aerosols serving as ice condensation nuclei, the effects on ice clouds and its consequent impact on the radiative balance has become of great climate concern. In addition, some light absorbing species, such as black carbon, can evaporate clouds, shorten the cloud life time, and inhabit cloud formation. In the other way around, clouds also determine the fate of aerosol to a considerable extent. The atmospheric lifetime of aerosols largely depends on their removal efficiency via precipitation processes, including in-cloud activation and blow-cloud scavenging. The physicochemical properties of aerosol particles could also be modified once they are incorporated into cloud droplets and released back to the atmosphere as clouds evaporate.

However, due to the complex in aerosol-cloud interactions and the coincident influence of large scale meteorological system on both aerosols and clouds, the understanding on detailed aerosol–cloud interactions is still limited. Poor parameterizations of some key mechanisms and processes further result in a large spread of modeling results on the modeling side, contributing the highest uncertainty on the evaluation of climate forcing among all forcing factors. This Special Issue aims at addressing most recent development and discoveries to improve our understanding of the aerosol-cloud interactions and to better evaluate/predict the impact of human activities on climate change.

Prof. Dr. Nan Ma
Prof. Dr. Qiaoqiao Wang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

aerosol-cloud interactions
CCN
IN
precipitation

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 2498 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Observational Study on Cloud Spectral Width in North China

by Yuan Wang, Shengjie Niu, Chunsong Lu, Yangang Liu, Jingyi Chen and Wenxia Yang

Atmosphere 2019, 10(3), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10030109 - 01 Mar 2019

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3244

Abstract

Cloud droplet size distribution (CDSD) is a critical characteristic for a number of processes related to clouds, considering that cloud droplets are formed in different sizes above the cloud-base. This paper analyzes the in-situ aircraft measurements of CDSDs and aerosol concentration ( [...] Read more.

N_{a}

) performed in stratiform clouds in Hebei, China, in 2015 to reveal the characteristics of cloud spectral width, commonly known as relative dispersion (

ε

, ratio of standard deviation (σ) to mean radius (r) of the CDSD). A new algorithm is developed to calculate the contributions of droplets of different sizes to

ε

. It is found that small droplets with the size range of 1 to 5.5 μm and medium droplets with the size range of 5.5 to 10 μm are the major contributors to ε, and the medium droplets generally dominate the change of ε. The variation of

ε

with

N_{a}

can be well explained by comparing the normalized changes of

σ

and

r

(

k_{σ} / σ

and

k_{r} / r

), rather than

k_{σ}

and

k_{r}

only (

k_{σ}

is Δσ/Δ

N_{a}

and

k_{r}

is Δr/Δ

N_{a}

). From the perspective of external factors affecting

ε

change, the effects of

N_{a}

and condensation are examined. It is found that

ε

increases initially and decreases afterward as

N_{a}

increases, and “condensational broadening” occurs up to 1 km above cloud-base, potentially providing observational evidence for recent numerical simulations in the literature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol-Cloud Interactions)

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23 pages, 6853 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Non-Monotonic Dependencies of Cloud Microphysics and Precipitation on Aerosol Loading in Deep Convective Clouds: A Case Study Using the WRF Model with Bin Microphysics

by Ye-Lim Jeon, Sungju Moon, Hyunho Lee, Jong-Jin Baik and Jambajamts Lkhamjav

Atmosphere 2018, 9(11), 434; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9110434 - 08 Nov 2018

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4174

Abstract

Aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions in deep convective clouds are investigated through numerical simulations of a heavy precipitation event over South Korea on 15–16 July 2017. The Weather Research and Forecasting model with a bin microphysics scheme is used, and various aerosol number concentrations in the range N₀ = 50–12,800 cm⁻³ are considered. Precipitation amount changes non-monotonically with increasing aerosol loading, with a maximum near a moderate aerosol loading (N₀ = 800 cm⁻³). Up to this optimal value, an increase in aerosol number concentration results in a greater quantity of small droplets formed by nucleation, increasing the number of ice crystals. Ice crystals grow into snow particles through deposition and riming, leading to enhanced melting and precipitation. Beyond the optimal value, a greater aerosol loading enhances generation of ice crystals while the overall growth of ice hydrometeors through deposition stagnates. Subsequently, the riming rate decreases because of the smaller size of snow particles and supercooled drops, leading to a decrease in ice melting and a slight suppression of precipitation. As aerosol loading increases, cold pool and low-level convergence strengthen monotonically, but cloud development is more strongly affected by latent heating and convection within the system that is non-monotonically reinforced. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol-Cloud Interactions)

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14 pages, 5945 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Polar Cooling Effect Due to Increase of Phytoplankton and Dimethyl-Sulfide Emission

by Ah-Hyun Kim, Seong Soo Yum, Hannah Lee, Dong Yeong Chang and Sungbo Shim

Atmosphere 2018, 9(10), 384; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9100384 - 01 Oct 2018

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6361

Abstract

The effects of increased dimethyl-sulfide (DMS) emissions due to increased marine phytoplankton activity are examined using an atmosphere-ocean coupled climate model. As the DMS emission flux from the ocean increases globally, large-scale cooling occurs due to the DMS-cloud condensation nuclei (CCN)-cloud albedo interactions. This cooling increases as DMS emissions are further increased, with the most pronounced effect occurring over the Arctic, which is likely associated with a change in sea-ice fraction as sea ice mediates the air-sea exchange of the radiation, moisture and heat flux. These results differ from recent studies that only considered the bio-physical feedback that led to amplified Arctic warming under greenhouse warming conditions. Therefore, climate negative feedback from DMS-CCN-cloud albedo interactions that involve marine phytoplankton and its impact on polar climate should be properly reflected in future climate models to better estimate climate change, especially over the polar regions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol-Cloud Interactions)

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13 pages, 2674 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development, Characterization, and Validation of a Cold Stage-Based Ice Nucleation Array (PKU-INA)

by Jie Chen, Xiangyu Pei, Hong Wang, Jingchuan Chen, Yishu Zhu, Mingjin Tang and Zhijun Wu

Atmosphere 2018, 9(9), 357; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9090357 - 17 Sep 2018

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3949

Abstract

A drop-freeze array (PeKing University Ice Nucleation Array, PKU-INA) was developed based on the cold-stage method to investigate heterogeneous ice nucleation properties of atmospheric particles in the immersion freezing mode from −30 to 0 °C. The instrumental details as well as characterization and performance evaluation are described in this paper. A careful temperature calibration protocol was developed in our work. The uncertainties in the reported temperatures were found to be less than 0.4 °C at various cooling rates after calibration. We also measured the ice nucleation activities of droplets containing different mass concentrations of illite NX, and the results obtained in our work show good agreement with those reported previously using other instruments with similar principles. Overall, we show that our newly developed PKU-INA is a robust and reliable instrument for investigation of heterogeneous ice nucleation in the immersion freezing mode. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol-Cloud Interactions)

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Review

Jump to: Research

19 pages, 1186 KiB

Open AccessReview

Recent Advances in Quantifying Wet Scavenging Efficiency of Black Carbon Aerosol

by Yuxiang Yang, Yuzhen Fu, Qinhao Lin, Feng Jiang, Xiufeng Lian, Lei Li, Zhanyong Wang, Guohua Zhang, Xinhui Bi, Xinming Wang and Guoying Sheng

Atmosphere 2019, 10(4), 175; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10040175 - 02 Apr 2019

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 4865

Abstract

Black carbon (BC) aerosol is of great importance not only for its strong potential in heating air and impacts on cloud, but also because of its hazards to human health. Wet deposition is regarded as the main sink of BC, constraining its lifetime and thus its impact on the environment and climate. However, substantial controversial and ambiguous issues in the wet scavenging processes of BC are apparent in current studies. Despite of its significance, there are only a small number of field studies that have investigated the incorporation of BC-containing particles into cloud droplets and influencing factors, in particular, the in-cloud scavenging, because it was simplicitly considered in many studies (as part of total wet scavenging). The mass scavenging efficiencies (MSEs) of BC were observed to be varied over the world, and the influencing factors were attributed to physical and chemical properties (e.g., size and chemical compositions) and meteorological conditions (cloud water content, temperature, etc.). In this review, we summarized the MSEs and potential factors that influence the in-cloud and below-cloud scavenging of BC. In general, MSEs of BC are lower at low-altitude regions (urban, suburban, and rural sites) and increase with the rising altitude, which serves as additional evidence that atmospheric aging plays an important role in the chemical modification of BC. Herein, higher altitude sites are more representative of free-tropospheric conditions, where BC is usually more aged. Despite of increasing knowledge of BC–cloud interaction, there are still challenges that need to be addressed to gain a better understanding of the wet scavenging of BC. We recommend that more comprehensive methods should be further estimated to obtain high time-resolved scavenging efficiency (SE) of BC, and to distinguish the impact of in-cloud and below-cloud scavenging on BC mass concentration, which is expected to be useful for constraining the gap between field observation and modeling simulation results. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol-Cloud Interactions)

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