TY - JOUR
T1 - Shallow Convective Cloud Field Lifetime as a Key Factor for Evaluating Aerosol Effects
AU - Dagan, Guy
AU - Koren, Ilan
AU - Altaratz, Orit
AU - Lehahn, Yoav
N1 - Funding Information: The research was supported by Scott Eric Jordan and Gina Valdez, the Bernard and Norton Wolf Family Foundation , and the Minerva Foundation (grant 712287 ). The authors gratefully acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model and/or READY website ( http://www.ready.noaa.gov ) used in this publication. We thank the University of Wyoming, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, for the sounding data (downloaded from http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html ). Publisher Copyright: © 2018 The Authors
PY - 2018/12/21
Y1 - 2018/12/21
N2 - Clouds control much of the Earth's energy and water budgets. Aerosols, suspended in the atmosphere, interact with clouds and affect their properties. Recent studies have suggested that the aerosol effect on warm convective cloud systems evolve in time and eventually approach a steady state for which the overall effects of aerosols can be considered negligible. Using numerical simulations, it was estimated that the time needed for such cloud fields to approach this state is >24 hr. These results suggest that the typical cloud field lifetime is an important parameter in determining the total aerosol effect. Here, analyzing satellite observations and reanalysis data (with the aid of numerical simulations), we show that the characteristic timescale of warm convective cloud fields is less than 12 hr. Such a timescale implies that these clouds should be regarded as transient-state phenomena and therefore can be highly susceptible to changes in aerosol properties.
AB - Clouds control much of the Earth's energy and water budgets. Aerosols, suspended in the atmosphere, interact with clouds and affect their properties. Recent studies have suggested that the aerosol effect on warm convective cloud systems evolve in time and eventually approach a steady state for which the overall effects of aerosols can be considered negligible. Using numerical simulations, it was estimated that the time needed for such cloud fields to approach this state is >24 hr. These results suggest that the typical cloud field lifetime is an important parameter in determining the total aerosol effect. Here, analyzing satellite observations and reanalysis data (with the aid of numerical simulations), we show that the characteristic timescale of warm convective cloud fields is less than 12 hr. Such a timescale implies that these clouds should be regarded as transient-state phenomena and therefore can be highly susceptible to changes in aerosol properties.
KW - Atmosphere Modelling
KW - Atmospheric Science
KW - Earth Sciences
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061177055&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2018.11.032
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2018.11.032
M3 - Article
SN - 2589-0042
VL - 10
SP - 192
EP - 202
JO - iScience
JF - iScience
ER -