Dataset Information

Aerosol effects on cloud water amounts were successfully simulated by a global cloud-system resolving model.

ABSTRACT: Aerosols affect climate by modifying cloud properties through their role as cloud condensation nuclei or ice nuclei, called aerosol-cloud interactions. In most global climate models (GCMs), the aerosol-cloud interactions are represented by empirical parameterisations, in which the mass of cloud liquid water (LWP) is assumed to increase monotonically with increasing aerosol loading. Recent satellite observations, however, have yielded contradictory results: LWP can decrease with increasing aerosol loading. This difference implies that GCMs overestimate the aerosol effect, but the reasons for the difference are not obvious. Here, we reproduce satellite-observed LWP responses using a global simulation with explicit representations of cloud microphysics, instead of the parameterisations. Our analyses reveal that the decrease in LWP originates from the response of evaporation and condensation processes to aerosol perturbations, which are not represented in GCMs. The explicit representation of cloud microphysics in global scale modelling reduces the uncertainty of climate prediction.

SUBMITTER: Sato Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5841301 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Aerosol effects on cloud water amounts were successfully simulated by a global cloud-system resolving model.

Sato Yousuke Y Goto Daisuke D Michibata Takuro T Suzuki Kentaroh K Takemura Toshihiko T Tomita Hirofumi H Nakajima Teruyuki T

Nature communications 20180307 1

Aerosols affect climate by modifying cloud properties through their role as cloud condensation nuclei or ice nuclei, called aerosol-cloud interactions. In most global climate models (GCMs), the aerosol-cloud interactions are represented by empirical parameterisations, in which the mass of cloud liquid water (LWP) is assumed to increase monotonically with increasing aerosol loading. Recent satellite observations, however, have yielded contradictory results: LWP can decrease with increasing aeroso ...[more]

PMID: 29515125

Similar Datasets

Project description:With the general rise of computational capacities and the continued efforts to improve computational efficiencies, more and more studies have been utilizing state-of-the-art atmospheric models that enable cloud-resolving simulations over a global domain. Microphysical processes inside clouds, however, are on a scale much smaller than that of a cloud itself, and therefore resolving clouds in a model is not equivalent to resolving cloud microphysical processes. When aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) is studied, chemistry models enable the prognostic calculations for chemical species, including aerosols, which can perturb cloud microphysics and eventually impact clouds and climate. The large drawback of these models is the high computational cost required for tracking chemical species in space and time that may not be affordable in some studies. As a result, some studies have used non-chemistry models with prescribed cloud droplet number concentrations [Formula: see text] and compared multiple simulations with different [Formula: see text] to assess the impacts of varying aerosol concentrations on clouds. In this study we assess whether the same or similar ACI can be simulated when the aerosol number is increased in a chemistry model and when [Formula: see text] is raised in a non-chemistry model. A case study has been conducted over the Maritime Continent in September 2015 when an extremely large number of aerosols were observed due to fires under a dry condition brought by a strong El Niño. The comparison of the simulations by the chemistry and non-chemistry models shows that the aerosol-driven enhancement of rainfall in the chemistry simulations was not present in the non-chemistry simulations, even with prescribed [Formula: see text] with certain spatial variation based on the chemistry runs. Therefore, simulated ACI may largely differ depending on the manner by which an increase or decrease of aerosols is represented in a model. The result suggests the further need for powerful computational capabilities and the pursuit of a rigorous means to incorporate aerosol species in a non-chemistry model.

Dataset Information

Aerosol effects on cloud water amounts were successfully simulated by a global cloud-system resolving model.

Publications

Aerosol effects on cloud water amounts were successfully simulated by a global cloud-system resolving model.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets