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Vaughan Phillips

Research in the Area of Clouds, Aerosols and Climate

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Effects of solid aerosols on partially glaciated clouds

Author

  • Innocent Kudzotsa
  • Vaughan T.J. Phillips
  • Steven Dobbie

Summary, in English

Sensitivity tests were conducted using a state-of-the-art aerosol–cloud to investigate the key microphysical and dynamical mechanisms by which solid aerosols affect glaciated clouds. The tests involved simulations of two contrasting cases of deep convection—a tropical maritime case and a midlatitude continental case, in which solid aerosol concentrations were increased from their pre-industrial (1850) to their present-day (2010) levels. In the midlatitude continental case, the boosting of the number concentrations of solid aerosols weakened the updrafts in deep convective clouds, resulting in reduced snow and graupel production. Consequently, the cloud fraction and the cloud optical thickness increased with increasing ice nuclei (IN), causing a negative radiative flux change at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), that is, a cooling effect of −1.96 ± 0.29 W/m2. On the other hand, in the tropical maritime case, increased ice nuclei invigorated upper-tropospheric updrafts in both deep convective and stratiform clouds, causing cloud tops to shift upwards. Snow production was also intensified, resulting in reduced cloud fraction and cloud optical thickness, hence a positive radiative flux change at the TOA—a warming effect of 1.02 ± 0.36 W/m2 was predicted.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system

Publishing year

2018

Language

English

Pages

2634-2649

Publication/Series

Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Volume

144

Issue

717

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Royal Meteorological Society

Topic

  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences

Keywords

  • aerosol–cloud interactions
  • cloud microphysics
  • cloud-resolving models
  • clouds
  • glaciated clouds
  • indirect effects

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0035-9009