Modern methods to explore the dynamics between aerosols and convective precipitation: A critical review

Abstract

The Earth’s atmospheric interface is highly vulnerable to anthropogenic aerosol pollution and changes caused by numerous industrial and allied sectors. The boundary layer aerosol emissions interact directly or indirectly with the dynamics and microphysical processes, impact cloud properties, precipitation accumulations, and subsequently affect socio-economic growth. The primary objective of this study is to synthesize the aerosol-convection-precipitation interactions concerning atmospheric microphysics and identify the modern methods to explore such dynamics. The secondary objective of this study is to understand and analyze the scientific literature with a bibliometric analysis to find the significant theme of influence from the scientific literature. The results highlighted the main and critical trends in aerosol research and reveal that the research interest seemingly improved in the past 5 years with an annual scientific growth rate of approx. 6%. It is evident from a plethora of relevant research findings that aerosol loading in the atmosphere up to a certain effective droplet concentration may increase the precipitation, however, further increment in aerosol concentration will decrease the precipitation efficiency. Regional feedback mechanisms (boundary layer, radiative etc.) play a pivotal role in governing aerosol and convective precipitation dynamics. The combination of satellite observations from space and ground-based (in-situ) measurements and climate models offers a practical possibility for resolving the complexity in cloud micro-phenomenology.