The potential impact of soot particles from aircraft exhaust on cirrus clouds

Abstract

Homogeneous freezing of sulfate aerosols may dominate ice nucleation in cirrus, implying that large supersaturations are required for cirrus cloud initiation at low temperatures. However, insoluble particles from the surface or soot particles injected directly into the upper troposphere by jet aircraft may act as heterogeneous ice nuclei. If the soot particles are sufficiently effective ice nuclei, then they will allow ice nucleation at lower supersaturations than those required for homogeneous freezing, resulting in an increase in the areal coverage of cirrus clouds. Simulations using a detailed ice cloud model indicate that cirrus driven by slow, steady lifting (a few cm‐s−1) will be transient, precipitating clouds if only pure sulfate haze aerosols are present. However, if effective heterogeneous nuclei are present, then extensive, persistent, diffuse cirrus should form. In addition, heterogeneous ice nucleation on insoluble particles may modify the number of ice crystals nucleated in cirrus, resulting in alterations of the cloud evolution and radiative properties. Heterogeneous freezing on relatively few insoluble particles (Ninv <0.1 cm−3) should result in fewer ice crystals nucleating than if homogeneous freezing were to occur. However, if large numbers of insoluble particles are present, the ice crystal number density may be increased.