The Role of Small Soluble Aerosols in the Microphysics of Deep Maritime Clouds
- 1 September 2012
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
- Vol. 69 (9), 2787-2807
- https://doi.org/10.1175/2011jas3649.1
Abstract
Some observational evidence—such as bimodal drop size distributions, comparatively high concentrations of supercooled drops at upper levels, high concentrations of small ice crystals in cloud anvils leading to high optical depth, and lightning in the eyewalls of hurricanes—indicates that the traditional view of the microphysics of deep tropical maritime clouds requires, possibly, some revisions. In the present study it is shown that the observed phenomena listed above can be attributed to the presence of small cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) with diameters less than about 0.05 μm. An increase in vertical velocity above cloud base can lead to an increase in supersaturation and to activation of the smallest CCN, resulting in production of new droplets several kilometers above the cloud base. A significant increase in supersaturation can be also caused by a decrease in droplet concentration during intense warm rain formation accompanied by an intense vertical velocity. This increase in supersaturatio...Keywords
This publication has 78 references indexed in Scilit:
- African lightning: Indicator of Tropical Atlantic Cyclone formationEos, 2007
- Impacts of nucleating aerosol on anvil-cirrus clouds: A modeling studyAtmospheric Research, 2007
- An ultrafine sea‐salt flux from breaking waves: Implications for cloud condensation nuclei in the remote marine atmosphereJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2006
- Smoking Rain Clouds over the AmazonScience, 2004
- Reflectivity, Ice Scattering, and Lightning Characteristics of Hurricane Eyewalls and Rainbands. Part II: Intercomparison of ObservationsMonthly Weather Review, 2002
- Reflectivity, Ice Scattering, and Lightning Characteristics of Hurricane Eyewalls and Rainbands. Part I: Quantitative DescriptionMonthly Weather Review, 2002
- A Pacific Aerosol Survey. Part I: A Decade of Data on Particle Production, Transport, Evolution, and Mixing in the Troposphere*Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2002
- Electrification of the HurricaneJournal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 1999
- A Flux Method for the Numerical Solution of the Stochastic Collection EquationJournal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 1998
- A Positive Definite Advection Scheme Obtained by Nonlinear Renormalization of the Advective FluxesMonthly Weather Review, 1989