Calendar Event Details
AEROCENTER: Lauren Zamora
Affiliation: NASA Postdoctoral Fellow
Event Date: Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Location: G133
Time: 11:15 AM
Aerosol net indirect effects on mid-altitude, thin, liquid-containing clouds over the Arctic Ocean
Aerosol net indirect effects have uncertain, but potentially large, impacts on the Arctic energy budget. Although local aerosol indirect effects can be sizeable, net regional indirect aerosol impacts on the surface are much more uncertain because they rely predominantly upon models that still cannot accurately represent many relevant Arctic processes. This study provides a first preliminary observation-based estimate of current-day net aerosol indirect effects from a subset of Arctic clouds. Our work is based on analysis of CALIPSO and CloudSat data, and aerosol transport model simulations. We use these to characterize optically thin liquid-containing clouds in clean, average and external aerosol-impacted conditions throughout the Arctic. We also investigate dominant mechanisms of ice nucleation in optically thin mixed phase clouds, and I will discuss the role of aerosols on ice nucleation for this cloud subset. Lastly, I will discuss some interesting characteristics of Arctic clouds found in clean background conditions.
Posted or updated: Tuesday, September 27, 2016
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