Abstract
Aerosol impacts on cloud-base height were investigated based on the 5 years (2006 to 2010) groundbased observations of aerosol and cloud properties provided by an atmospheric measurement field station in the Baltimore-Washington corridor operated by Howard University. Opposite to the decreasing trend of the aerosol loading, an increasing trend of cloud-base height was found over the five years. During the investigation, the five-year summer time low-base clouds are separated into clean and polluted groups based on the aerosol particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5m (PM2.5) value. With the same lifting condensation level (LCL) the cloud-base heights were found lower under the polluted conditions than that under the clean conditions. Moreover, a significant negative relationship between the difference of cloud-base height to LCL and PM2.5 concentration was found based on the five years observations. This study showed that clouds might form at lower altitude under the polluted conditions compared to the clean conditions.
Highlights
Aerosols play an important role in the human life because their impacts on the air pollution and their impacts on climate through the radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions (RFaci)
In the previous study of aerosol cloud interaction in the BaltimoreWashington corridor, it was found that more frequent episodes of high aerosol loading occurred and the mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) was higher during the summers of year 2006 and 2007 as compared to that in year 2008, 2009 and 2010 [14]
Based on the long-term ground-based observations of aerosol and cloud properties from Howard University Beltsville Campus (HUBC) facility, this study investigated the potential impacts of aerosols on the cloud-base height
Summary
Aerosols play an important role in the human life because their impacts on the air pollution and their impacts on climate through the radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions (RFaci). In the study of Li et al, [11], a strong aerosol invigoration effect on convection in summer was observed, which leads to higher cloud-top heights for mixed-phase clouds with low bases through the analysis of the 10 years measurements of aerosol and cloud properties at US Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) site.
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