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An assessment of aerosol‐cloud interactions in marine stratus clouds based on surface remote sensing
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York, USA
Global Monitoring Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA
An assessment of aerosol‐cloud interactions (ACI) from ground‐based remote sensing under coastal stratiform clouds is presented. The assessment utilizes a long‐term, high temporal resolution data set from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program deployment at Pt. Reyes, California, United States, in 2005 to provide statistically robust measures of ACI and to characterize the variability of the measures based on variability in environmental conditions and observational approaches. The average ACI N (= dlnN d /dlnα, the change in cloud drop number concentration with aerosol concentration) is 0.48, within a physically plausible range of 0–1.0. Values vary between 0.18 and 0.69 with dependence on (1) the assumption of constant cloud liquid water path (LWP), (2) the relative value of cloud LWP, (3) methods for retrieving N d , (4) aerosol size distribution, (5) updraft velocity, and (6) the scale and resolution of observations. The sensitivity of the local, diurnally averaged radiative forcing to this variability in ACI N values, assuming an aerosol perturbation of 500 cm−3 relative to a background concentration of 100 cm−3, ranges between −4 and −9 W m−2. Further characterization of ACI and its variability is required to reduce uncertainties in global radiative forcing estimates.
Received 19 August 2008; accepted 4 February 2009; published 5 May 2009.
Citation: (2009), An assessment of aerosol‐cloud interactions in marine stratus clouds based on surface remote sensing, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D09203, doi:10.1029/2008JD011006.
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