Precipitation susceptibility in marine stratocumulus and shallow cumulus from airborne measurements
Precipitation tends to decrease as aerosol concentration increases in warm marine boundary layer clouds at fixed liquid water path (LWP). The quantitative nature of this relationship is captured using the precipitation susceptibility (<i>S</i><sub><i>o</i></sub>...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2016-09-01
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| Series: | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
| Online Access: | https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/11395/2016/acp-16-11395-2016.pdf |
| Summary: | Precipitation tends to decrease as aerosol concentration
increases in warm marine boundary layer clouds at fixed liquid water path
(LWP). The quantitative nature of this relationship is captured using the
precipitation susceptibility (<i>S</i><sub><i>o</i></sub>) metric. Previously published
works disagree on the qualitative behavior of <i>S</i><sub><i>o</i></sub> in marine low
clouds: <i>S</i><sub><i>o</i></sub> decreases monotonically with increasing LWP or
cloud depth (<i>H</i>) in stratocumulus clouds (Sc), while it increases
and then decreases in shallow cumulus clouds (Cu). This study uses airborne
measurements from four field campaigns on Cu and Sc with similar instrument
packages and flight maneuvers to examine if and why <i>S</i><sub><i>o</i></sub> behavior varies as a function of cloud type. The findings show that
<i>S</i><sub><i>o</i></sub> increases with <i>H</i> and then decreases in both Sc and
Cu. Possible reasons for why these results differ from those in previous
studies of Sc are discussed. |
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| ISSN: | 1680-7316 1680-7324 |