Tropical Deep Convective Clouds Research Articles

The evolution of deep convective systems and their associated cirrus outflows

Abstract. Tropical deep convective clouds, particularly their large cirrus outflows, play an important role in modulating the energy balance of the Earth's atmosphere. Whilst the cores of these deep convective clouds have a significant short-wave (SW) cooling effect, they dissipate quickly. Conversely, the thin cirrus that flow from these cores can persist for days after the core has dissipated, reaching hundreds of kilometres in extent. These thin cirrus have a potential for large warming in the tropics. Understanding the evolution of air parcels from deep convection, clouds along these trajectories, and how they change in response to anthropogenic emissions is therefore important to understand past and future climate change. This work uses a novel approach to investigate the evolution of tropical convective clouds by introducing the concept of “time since convection” (TSC). This is used to build a composite picture of the lifecycle of air parcels from deep convection. Cloud properties are a strong function of TSC, showing decreases in the optical thickness, cloud-top height, and cloud fraction over time, thereby driving the latitudinal structure of cloudiness. After an initial dissipation of the convective core, changes in thin cirrus cloud amount were seen beyond 200 h from convection. Changes in cloud are shown to be a strong function of TSC and not simply reflective of latitudinal changes as air moves from the tropics to the extratropics. Finally, in the initial stages of convection there was a large net negative cloud radiative effect (CRE). However, once the convective core had dissipated, the sign of the CRE flipped and there was a sustained net warming CRE beyond 120 h from the convective event. Changes are present in the cloud properties long after the main convective activities have dissipated, signalling the need to continue further analysis at longer timescales than previously studied.

Improved tropical deep convective cloud detection using MODIS observations with an active sensor trained machine learning algorithm

Tropical deep convective clouds (DCCs) play an essential role in the Earth system. However, separating DCCs from thick anvils with satellite passive measurements is challenging. In this work, a day/night unified tropical DCC detection approach for MODIS observations is developed with a CloudSat active sensor measurement trained machine learning model. This approach combines brightness temperatures (BTs) at 6.7 μm (BT6.7) and 11 μm (BT11) with derived variables describing horizontal structures of DCCs and improves the tropical DCC probability of detection (POD) from 45.0% for the widely-used BT11 < 215 K method to 67.9%, while the false alarm ratio (FAR) decreases from 43.9% to 32.6%. The Heidke skill score (HSS) of the new algorithm is 0.425, which is more than doubled compared to the HSS of the BT11 < 215 K method (0.182). Moreover, the new algorithm has small biases in DCC's total amount and spatial distribution compared with the CloudSat results. The monthly DCC variations from MODIS wide-swath measurements with the new algorithm demonstrate the ability to reliably provide high temporal and spatial resolution DCC distributions to support intra-seasonal to interannual climate variability studies, which the CloudSat narrow-swath measurements lack enough samples to do. Meanwhile, the new algorithm can also be applied to measurements from other satellite passive sensors when BT6.7 and BT11 are available.

Coarse sea spray inhibits lightning

The known effects of thermodynamics and aerosols can well explain the thunderstorm activity over land, but fail over oceans. Here, tracking the full lifecycle of tropical deep convective cloud clusters shows that adding fine aerosols significantly increases the lightning density for a given rainfall amount over both ocean and land. In contrast, adding coarse sea salt (dry radius > 1 μm), known as sea spray, weakens the cloud vigor and lightning by producing fewer but larger cloud drops, which accelerate warm rain at the expense of mixed-phase precipitation. Adding coarse sea spray can reduce the lightning by 90% regardless of fine aerosol loading. These findings reconcile long outstanding questions about the differences between continental and marine thunderstorms, and help to understand lightning and underlying aerosol-cloud-precipitation interaction mechanisms and their climatic effects.

Diverse cloud radiative effects and global surface temperature simulations induced by different ice cloud optical property parameterizations

The representation of ice cloud optical properties in climate models has long been a difficult problem. Very different ice cloud optical property parameterization schemes developed based on very different assumptions of ice particle shape habits, particle size distributions, and surface roughness conditions, are used in various models. It is not clear as to how simulated climate variables are affected by the ice cloud optical property parameterizations. A total of five ice cloud optical property parameterization schemes, including three based on the ice habit mixtures suitable for general ice clouds, mid-latitude synoptic ice clouds, and tropical deep convective ice clouds, and the other two based on single ice habits (smooth hexagonal column and severely roughened column aggregate), are developed under a same framework and are implemented in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmospheric Model version 5. A series of atmosphere-only climate simulations are carried out for each of the five cases with different ice parameterizations. The differences in the simulated top of the atmosphere shortwave and longwave cloud radiative effects (CREs) are evaluated, and the global averaged net CRE differences among different cases range from − 1.93 to 1.03 Wm−2. The corresponding changes in simulated surface temperature are found to be most prominent on continental regions which amount to several degrees in Kelvin. Our results indicate the importance of choosing a reasonable ice cloud optical property parameterization in climate simulations.

Microphysical processes producing high ice water contents (HIWCs) in tropical convective clouds during the HAIC-HIWC field campaign: dominant role of secondary ice production

Abstract. High ice water content (HIWC) regions in tropical deep convective clouds, composed of high concentrations of small ice crystals, were not reproduced by Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulations at 1 km horizontal grid spacing using four different bulk microphysics schemes (i.e., the WRF single‐moment 6‐class microphysics scheme (WSM6), the Morrison scheme and the Predicted Particle Properties (P3) scheme with one- and two-ice options) for conditions encountered during the High Altitude Ice Crystals (HAIC) and HIWC experiment. Instead, overestimates of radar reflectivity and underestimates of ice number concentrations were realized. To explore formation mechanisms for large numbers of small ice crystals in tropical convection, a series of quasi-idealized WRF simulations varying the model resolution, aerosol profile, and representation of secondary ice production (SIP) processes are conducted based on an observed radiosonde released at Cayenne during the HAIC-HIWC field campaign. The P3 two-ice category configuration, which has two “free” ice categories to represent all ice-phase hydrometeors, is used. Regardless of the horizontal grid spacing or aerosol profile used, without including SIP processes the model produces total ice number concentrations about 2 orders of magnitude less than observed at −10 ∘C and about an order of magnitude less than observed at −30 ∘C but slightly overestimates the total ice number concentrations at −45 ∘C. Three simulations including one of three SIP mechanisms separately (i.e., the Hallett–Mossop mechanism, fragmentation during ice–ice collisions, and shattering of freezing droplets) also do not replicate observed HIWCs, with the results of the simulation including shattering of freezing droplets most closely resembling the observations. The simulation including all three SIP processes produces HIWC regions at all temperature levels, remarkably consistent with the observations in terms of ice number concentrations and radar reflectivity, which is not replicated using the original P3 two-ice category configuration. This simulation shows that primary ice production plays a key role in generating HIWC regions at temperatures &lt;-40 ∘C, shattering of freezing droplets dominates ice particle production in HIWC regions at temperatures between −15 and 0 ∘C during the early stage of convection, and fragmentation during ice–ice collisions dominates at temperatures between −15 and 0 ∘C during the later stage of convection and at temperatures between −40 and −20 ∘C over the whole convection period. This study confirms the dominant role of SIP processes in the formation of numerous small crystals in HIWC regions.

Radiometric Stability Assessment of the DSCOVR EPIC Visible Bands Using MODIS, VIIRS, and Invariant Targets as Independent References

The DSCOVR mission was designed to take advantage of the first Lagrangian position (L1) to continuously observe the Earth sunlit disk. To facilitate EPIC V03 data product validation and fusion, the EPIC V03 navigation and calibration stability is assessed. The Aqua-MODIS, NPP-VIIRS, and N20-VIIRS based radiometric scaling factors are also provided. The V03 navigation error was 15.5 km, a 50% improvement over V02 and within what can be achieved by an objective image alignment algorithm. Both the navigation accuracy and precision were improved in V03 and were found to be comparable across all EPIC visible channels. The all-sky tropical ocean and deep convective cloud ray-matched MODIS- and VIIRS-referenced EPIC inter-calibration gains are within 0.4% of one-another, and are also within 0.4% of a previous study’s NPP-VIIRS-referenced gains. The inter-calibration study reveals that EPIC bands 5 and 6 degraded mostly within the first year of operation and becoming stable thereafter, whereas bands 7 and 10 were stable during the 6-years record. The capability of the V03 navigation allowed EPIC stability to be monitored using DCC and Libya-4 invariant targets. The EPIC V03 calibration was mostly stable within 0.3% over the 6-years record, as determined from inter-calibration and invariant target monitoring methods. Remarkably, both the DCC- and Libya-4-based methods were able to confirm the stability of the E-8 and E-9 oxygen absorptions—a stability comparable to that of the E-7 and E-10 reference bands. No significant change in the navigation accuracy or calibration stability was observed after the DSCOVR 2019 safe mode incident. The impressive stability of the DSCOVR EPIC L1B V03 channel radiances can greatly benefit the Earth remote sensing community by providing diurnally complete daytime radiative flux and environmental retrievals for future sensors located at L1.

Evaluation of the AROME model's ability to represent ice crystal icing using in situ observations from the HAIC 2015 field campaign

AbstractSince pilots generally avoid intense convective areas, ice crystals icing (ICI) is an aeronautical weather incident that mainly occurs in the anvil of tropical deep convective clouds. Samples of favorable conditions for the occurrence of ICI and data from the High Altitude Ice Crystals (HAIC) 2015 field campaign in French Guiana are investigated and compared with simulations of the French operational mesoscale forecast system Application of Research to Operations at Mesoscales (AROME). To this end, a contextualization of convective systems into convective, stratiform, and cirriform regions is employed for both observations and AROME. General features of the microphysics of deep tropical convective systems are identified. The number concentration of crystals larger than 125 μm and total water content (TWC) are strongly correlated at each temperature level, and both decrease with increasing distance from convective cores. AROME can reproduce the general behavior of the observed microphysics, especially TWC, but seems unable to simulate extreme ICI events. Reasons are sought in the assumptions performed in the microphysical scheme ICE3, and guidelines are proposed to enhance its skills in the context of ICI. In particular, the representation of the snow particle size distribution is adjusted across observations using a generalized gamma shape. This shape is found to outperform the usual Marshall–Palmer and gamma shapes. Additionally, a temperature and snow content dependence of generalized gamma parameters is found. These changes are found to significantly improve the snow concentration diagnostic of ICE3, and these modifications open the way for improvements in the ICE3 scheme.

An Observational Comparison of Level of Neutral Buoyancy and Level of Maximum Detrainment in Tropical Deep Convective Clouds

AbstractTropical deep convective clouds are important drivers of large‐scale atmospheric circulation representing the main vertical transport pathway through the depth of the troposphere for heat, momentum, water, and chemical species. The strength and depth of this transport are impacted by the convective updraft size and intensity that are driven by buoyancy, dynamical forcing, and mixing of environmental air, that is, entrainment. In this study, we identify tropical deep convective systems with well‐defined forward anvils using Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) ground‐based profiling radars, at three ARM fixed sites in the Tropical Western Pacific (TWP; i.e., Manus, Nauru, and Darwin) and three ARM Mobile Facility deployments in Niamey, Niger; Gan Island, Maldives; and Manacapuru, Brazil. We use the difference between the level of neutral buoyancy (LNB) and the level of maximum detrainment (LMD) as a proxy for the effective bulk convective entrainment (εproxy). The LNB, the theoretical height that a parcel raised above the level of free convection would reach with no mixing, is calculated based on preconvection radiosonde measurements using parcel theory. The LMD is the height of the maximum reflectivity observed in forward anvil clouds by profiling radars. Deep convective systems over the TWP show higher LNBs that extend to 16.3 km on average and larger εproxy (median value of LNB minus LMD up to 6.5 km) compared to their continental counterparts in the Amazon and West Africa. Oceanic conditions show larger convective available potential energy (CAPE) coupled with higher moisture at low levels, which favors larger εproxy. In contrast, continental cases initiate and develop, under high convective inhibition, steeper environmental lapse rate, and high wind shear conditions, which show smaller offset between LNB and LMD. Deep convective cases that promote significant cold pools at the surface experience less εproxy. Using a Random Forest regression algorithm, CAPE is associated with the highest feature importance score for predicting convective εproxy, followed by low‐level relative humidity. For continental cases, the low‐level wind shear also indicates higher importance.

The Inter-Calibration of the DSCOVR EPIC Imager with Aqua-MODIS and NPP-VIIRS

The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) through the earth polychromatic imaging camera (EPIC) continuously observes the illuminated disk from the Lagrange-1 point. The EPIC sensor was designed to monitor the diurnal variation of ozone, clouds, aerosols, and vegetation, especially those features that benefit from observation near-backscatter conditions. The EPIC sensor does not contain any onboard calibration systems. This study describes the inter-calibration of EPIC channels 5 (0.44 µm), 6 (0.55 µm), 7 (0.68 µm), and 10 (0.78 µm) with respect to Aqua-MODIS and NPP-VIIRS. The calibration is transferred using coincident ray-matched reflectance pairs over all-sky tropical ocean (ATO) and deep convective cloud (DCC) targets. A robust and automated image-alignment technique based on feature matching was formulated to improve the navigation quality of the EPIC images. The EPIC V02 dataset exhibits improved navigation over V01. As the visible channels display similar spatial features, a single visible channel can be used to co-register the remaining visible bands. The VIIRS-referenced EPIC ATO and DCC ray-matched calibration coefficients are within 0.3%. The EPIC four-year calibration trends based on VIIRS are within 0.15%/year. The MODIS-based EPIC calibration coefficients were compared against the Geogdzhayev and Marshak 2018 published calibration coefficients and were found to be within 1.6%.

Characteristics of monsoonal precipitating cloud systems over the Indian subcontinent derived from weather radar data

The convective area within a mesoscale convective system (MCS) contains intense convective cells or storms which themselves could be made of a single cumulonimbus cloud or several of them joined together. Interconnection between MCS evolution and storms has not been reported previously. We address this gap area by using the Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) data collected at four stations in India during the summer monsoon season of 2013. The four DWR locations selected have different climates ranging from coastal to semi‐arid. Storm is defined as a set of contiguous radar pixels in three‐dimensional space with a reflectivity threshold of 30 dBZ and the threshold criterion is satisfied in a volume of at least 50 km3. Monsoonal MCSs contain a few to more than 20 storms depending on geographic location and MCS life stage. The average area of storms ranges from 13 to 170 km2 while storm heights mostly lie between 6 and 10 km. The growth stage of an MCS is characterized by a rapid increase in the number of storms, while their number and average area decrease in the dissipation stage. Storms occupy 30–70% of the convective area within an MCS and contribute 90–97% of the convective precipitation at any given instant. Thus, a few to several cumulonimbus clouds grouped together in a contiguous manner matter most for convective precipitation, making storm scale an important scale in the hierarchy of scales in tropical deep convective cloud systems. This has implications for cumulus parametrization as well as planning satellite payloads for observing precipitation.

Aerosol characteristics and particle production in the upper troposphere over the Amazon Basin

Abstract. Airborne observations over the Amazon Basin showed high aerosol particle concentrations in the upper troposphere (UT) between 8 and 15 km altitude, with number densities (normalized to standard temperature and pressure) often exceeding those in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude. The measurements were made during the German–Brazilian cooperative aircraft campaign ACRIDICON–CHUVA, where ACRIDICON stands for Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interactions and Dynamics of Convective Cloud Systems and CHUVA is the acronym for Cloud Processes of the Main Precipitation Systems in Brazil: A Contribution to Cloud Resolving Modeling and to the GPM (global precipitation measurement), on the German High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO). The campaign took place in September–October 2014, with the objective of studying tropical deep convective clouds over the Amazon rainforest and their interactions with atmospheric trace gases, aerosol particles, and atmospheric radiation. Aerosol enhancements were observed consistently on all flights during which the UT was probed, using several aerosol metrics, including condensation nuclei (CN) and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentrations and chemical species mass concentrations. The UT particles differed sharply in their chemical composition and size distribution from those in the PBL, ruling out convective transport of combustion-derived particles from the boundary layer (BL) as a source. The air in the immediate outflow of deep convective clouds was depleted of aerosol particles, whereas strongly enhanced number concentrations of small particles (&lt; 90 nm diameter) were found in UT regions that had experienced outflow from deep convection in the preceding 5–72 h. We also found elevated concentrations of larger (&gt; 90 nm) particles in the UT, which consisted mostly of organic matter and nitrate and were very effective CCN. Our findings suggest a conceptual model, where production of new aerosol particles takes place in the continental UT from biogenic volatile organic material brought up by deep convection and converted to condensable species in the UT. Subsequently, downward mixing and transport of upper tropospheric aerosol can be a source of particles to the PBL, where they increase in size by the condensation of biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) oxidation products. This may be an important source of aerosol particles for the Amazonian PBL, where aerosol nucleation and new particle formation have not been observed. We propose that this may have been the dominant process supplying secondary aerosol particles in the pristine atmosphere, making clouds the dominant control of both removal and production of atmospheric particles.

Development of Seasonal BRDF Models to Extend the Use of Deep Convective Clouds as Invariant Targets for Satellite SWIR-Band Calibration

Tropical deep convective clouds (DCC) are an excellent invariant target for vicarious calibration of satellite visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) solar bands. The DCC technique (DCCT) is a statistical approach that collectively analyzes all identified DCC pixels on a monthly basis. The DCC reflectance in VIS and NIR spectrums is mainly a function of cloud optical depth, and provides a stable monthly statistical mode. However, for absorption shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands, the monthly DCC response is found to exhibit large seasonal cycles that make the implementation of the DCCT more challenging at these wavelengths. The seasonality assumption was tested using the SNPP-VIIRS SWIR bands, with up to 50% of the monthly DCC response temporal variation removed through deseasonalization. In this article, a monthly DCC bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) approach is proposed, which is found to be comparable to or can outperform the effects of deseasonalization alone. To demonstrate that the SNPP-VIIRS DCC BRDF can be applied to other JPSS VIIRS imagers in the same 13:30 sun-synchronous orbit, the VIIRS DCC BRDF was applied to Aqua-MODIS. The Aqua-MODIS SWIR band DCC reflectance natural variability is reduced by up to 45% after applying the VIIRS-based monthly DCC BRDFs.

Vertical distribution of the particle phase in tropical deep convective clouds as derived from cloud-side reflected solar radiation measurements

Abstract. Vertical profiles of cloud particle phase in tropical deep convective clouds (DCCs) were investigated using airborne solar spectral radiation data collected by the German High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO) during the ACRIDICON-CHUVA campaign, which was conducted over the Brazilian rainforest in September 2014. A phase discrimination retrieval based on imaging spectroradiometer measurements of DCC side spectral reflectivity was applied to clouds formed in different aerosol conditions. From the retrieval results the height of the mixed-phase layer of the DCCs was determined. The retrieved profiles were compared with in situ measurements and satellite observations. It was found that the depth and vertical position of the mixed-phase layer can vary up to 900 m for one single cloud scene. This variability is attributed to the different stages of cloud development in a scene. Clouds of mature or decaying stage are affected by falling ice particles resulting in lower levels of fully glaciated cloud layers compared to growing clouds. Comparing polluted and moderate aerosol conditions revealed a shift of the lower boundary of the mixed-phase layer from 5.6 ± 0.2 km (269 K; moderate) to 6.2 ± 0.3 km (267 K; polluted), and of the upper boundary from 6.8 ± 0.2 km (263 K; moderate) to 7.4 ± 0.4 km (259 K; polluted), as would be expected from theory.

Characterizing response versus scan-angle for MODIS reflective solar bands using deep convective clouds

MODIS consists of a cross-track, two-sided scan mirror, whose reflectance is not uniform but is a function of angle of incidence (AOI). This feature, known as response versusscan-angle (RVS), was characterized for all reflective solar bands of both MODIS instruments prior to launch. The RVS characteristic has changed on orbit, which must be tracked precisely over time to ensure the quality of MODIS products. The MODIS characterization support team utilizes the onboard calibrators and the earth view responses from multiple pseudo invariant desert sites to track the RVS changes at different AOIs. The drawback of using deserts is the assumption that these sites are radiometrically stable during the monitoring period. In addition, the 16-day orbit repeat cycle of MODIS allows for only a limited set of AOIs over a given desert. We propose a novel and robust approach of characterizing the MODIS RVS using tropical deep convective clouds (DCC). The method tracks the monthly DCC response at specified sets of AOIs to compute the temporal RVS changes. Initial results have shown that the Aqua-MODIS collection 6 band 1 level 1B radiances show considerable residual RVS dependencies, with long-term drifts up to 2.3 at certain AOIs.

Distribution of Tropical Deep Convective Clouds From Megha-Tropiques SAPHIR Data

A method has been developed to delineate tropical deep convective clouds with different vertical extents, making use of five humidity sounding channels of the Sondeur Atmospherique du Profil d'Humidite Intertropical par Radiometrie payload aboard the Megha-Tropiques (MT) satellite. The methodology is validated by comparing with CloudSat radar and very high resolution radiometer/Kalpana-1 measurements of deep convective and overshooting cloud systems. This methodology is utilized to study deep convective clouds with different vertical extents and examined the seasonality over an India-centered domain. The MT satellite has a low inclination orbit, which ensures the frequent sampling of the global tropical region. The methodology is useful to derive the climatology of occurrence frequency of tropical deep convective clouds with different vertical extents, unbiased to specific local times, with high spatial and temporal resolutions.

ACRIDICON–CHUVA Campaign: Studying Tropical Deep Convective Clouds and Precipitation over Amazonia Using the New German Research Aircraft HALO

Abstract Between 1 September and 4 October 2014, a combined airborne and ground-based measurement campaign was conducted to study tropical deep convective clouds over the Brazilian Amazon rain forest. The new German research aircraft, High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO), a modified Gulfstream G550, and extensive ground-based instrumentation were deployed in and near Manaus (State of Amazonas). The campaign was part of the German–Brazilian Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interactions and Dynamics of Convective Cloud Systems–Cloud Processes of the Main Precipitation Systems in Brazil: A Contribution to Cloud Resolving Modeling and to the GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) (ACRIDICON– CHUVA) venture to quantify aerosol–cloud–precipitation interactions and their thermodynamic, dynamic, and radiative effects by in situ and remote sensing measurements over Amazonia. The ACRIDICON–CHUVA field observations were carried out in cooperation with the second intensive operating period of Green Ocean Amazon 2014/15 (GoAmazon2014/5). In this paper we focus on the airborne data measured on HALO, which was equipped with about 30 in situ and remote sensing instruments for meteorological, trace gas, aerosol, cloud, precipitation, and spectral solar radiation measurements. Fourteen research flights with a total duration of 96 flight hours were performed. Five scientific topics were pursued: 1) cloud vertical evolution and life cycle (cloud profiling), 2) cloud processing of aerosol particles and trace gases (inflow and outflow), 3) satellite and radar validation (cloud products), 4) vertical transport and mixing (tracer experiment), and 5) cloud formation over forested/deforested areas. Data were collected in near-pristine atmospheric conditions and in environments polluted by biomass burning and urban emissions. The paper presents a general introduction of the ACRIDICON– CHUVA campaign (motivation and addressed research topics) and of HALO with its extensive instrument package, as well as a presentation of a few selected measurement results acquired during the flights for some selected scientific topics.

Organic aerosol processing in tropical deep convective clouds: Development of a new model (CRM‐ORG) and implications for sources of particle number

AbstractThe difficulty in assessing interactions between atmospheric particles and clouds is due in part to the chemical complexity of the particles and to the wide range of length and timescales of processes occurring simultaneously during a cloud event. The new Cloud‐Resolving Model with Organics (CRM‐ORG) addresses these interactions by explicitly predicting the formation, transport, uptake, and re‐release of surrogate organic compounds consistent with the volatility basis set framework within a nonhydrostatic, three‐dimensional cloud‐resolving model. CRM‐ORG incorporates photochemical production, explicit condensation/evaporation of organic and inorganic vapors, and a comprehensive set of four different mechanisms describing particle formation from organic vapors and sulfuric acid. We simulate two deep convective cloud events over the Amazon rain forest in March 1998 and compare modeled particle size distributions with airborne observations made during the time period. The model predictions agree well with the observations for Aitken mode particles in the convective outflow (10–14 km) but underpredict nucleation mode particles by a factor of 20. A strong in‐cloud particle formation process from organic vapors alone is necessary to reproduce even relatively low ultrafine particle number concentrations (~1500 cm−3). Sensitivity tests with variable initial aerosol loading and initial vertical aerosol profile demonstrate the complexity of particle redistribution and net gain or loss in the cloud. In‐cloud particle number concentrations could be enhanced by as much as a factor of 3 over the base case simulation in the cloud outflow but were never reduced by more than a factor of 2 lower than the base. Additional sensitivity cases emphasize the need for constrained estimates of surface tension and affinity of organic vapors to ice surfaces. When temperature‐dependent organic surface tension is introduced to the new particle formation mechanisms, the number concentration of particles decreases by 60% in the cloud outflow. These uncertainties are discussed in light of the other prominent challenges for understanding the interactions between organic aerosols and clouds. Recommendations for future theoretical, laboratory, and field work are proposed.

Tropical deep convective life cycle: Cb-anvil cloud microphysics from high-altitude aircraft observations

Abstract. The case study presented here focuses on the life cycle of clouds in the anvil region of a tropical deep convective system. During the SCOUT-O3 campaign from Darwin, Northern Australia, the Hector storm system has been probed by the Geophysica high-altitude aircraft. Clouds were observed by in situ particle probes, a backscatter sonde, and a miniature lidar. Additionally, aerosol number concentrations have been measured. On 30 November 2005 a double flight took place and Hector was probed throughout its life cycle in its developing, mature, and dissipating stage. The two flights were four hours apart and focused on the anvil region of Hector in altitudes between 10.5 and 18.8 km (i.e. above 350 K potential temperature). Trajectory calculations, satellite imagery, and ozone measurements have been used to ensure that the same cloud air masses have been probed in both flights. The size distributions derived from the measurements show a change not only with increasing altitude but also with the evolution of Hector. Clearly different cloud to aerosol particle ratios as well as varying ice crystal morphology have been found for the different development stages of Hector, indicating different freezing mechanisms. The development phase exhibits the smallest ice particles (up to 300 μm) with a rather uniform morphology. This is indicative for rapid glaciation during Hector's development. Sizes of ice crystals are largest in the mature stage (larger than 1.6 mm) and even exceed those of some continental tropical deep convective clouds, also in their number concentrations. The backscatter properties and particle images show a change in ice crystal shape from the developing phase to rimed and aggregated particles in the mature and dissipating stages; the specific shape of particles in the developing phase cannot be distinguished from the measurements. Although optically thin, the clouds in the dissipating stage have a large vertical extent (roughly 6 km) and persist for at least 6 h. Thus, the anvils of these high-reaching deep convective clouds have a high potential for affecting the tropical tropopause layer by modifying the humidity and radiative budget, as well as for providing favourable conditions for subvisible cirrus formation. The involved processes may also influence the amount of water vapour that ultimately reaches the stratosphere in the tropics.

Variation of ice crystal size, shape, and asymmetry parameter in tops of tropical deep convective clouds

The variation of ice crystal properties in the tops of deep convective clouds off the north coast of Australia is analyzed. Cloud optical thickness, ice effective radius, aspect ratio of ice crystal components, crystal distortion parameter and asymmetry parameter are simultaneously retrieved from combined measurements of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances (POLDER) satellite instruments. The data are divided into periods with alternating weak and strong convection. Mostly plate-like particle components with aspect ratios closer to unity and lower asymmetry parameters characterize strongly convective periods, while weakly convective periods generally show lower aspect ratios, relatively more column-like shapes and somewhat greater asymmetry parameters. Results for strongly convective periods show that, with increasing cloud top temperature, the distortion parameter generally decreases, while the asymmetry parameter and effective radius increase. For one of the strongly convective periods, the rate at which effective radii increase with cloud top temperature is more than double that of the other periods, while the temperature dependence of the other microphysical quantities for this period is substantially weaker. Atmospheric state analysis indicates that these differences are concurrent with differences in middle-to-upper tropospheric zonal wind shear. The observed variation of microphysical properties may have significant effects on the shortwave radiative fluxes and cloud absorption associated with deep convection. Additionally, MODIS collection 5 effective radii are estimated to be biased small with an artificially narrow range. Collection 6 products are expected to have less severe biases that depend on cloud top temperature and atmospheric conditions.

A Physically Based Algorithm for Non-Blackbody Correction of Cloud-Top Temperature and Application to Convection Study

AbstractCloud-top temperature (CTT) is an important parameter for convective clouds and is usually different from the 11-μm brightness temperature due to non-blackbody effects. This paper presents an algorithm for estimating convective CTT by using simultaneous passive [Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)] and active [CloudSat + Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO)] measurements of clouds to correct for the non-blackbody effect. To do this, a weighting function of the MODIS 11-μm band is explicitly calculated by feeding cloud hydrometer profiles from CloudSat and CALIPSO retrievals and temperature and humidity profiles based on ECMWF analyses into a radiation transfer model. Among 16 837 tropical deep convective clouds observed by CloudSat in 2008, the averaged effective emission level (EEL) of the 11-μm channel is located at optical depth ~0.72, with a standard deviation of 0.3. The distance between the EEL and cloud-top height determined by CloudSat is shown to be related to a parameter called cloud-top fuzziness (CTF), defined as the vertical separation between −30 and 10 dBZ of CloudSat radar reflectivity. On the basis of these findings a relationship is then developed between the CTF and the difference between MODIS 11-μm brightness temperature and physical CTT, the latter being the non-blackbody correction of CTT. Correction of the non-blackbody effect of CTT is applied to analyze convective cloud-top buoyancy. With this correction, about 70% of the convective cores observed by CloudSat in the height range of 6–10 km have positive buoyancy near cloud top, meaning clouds are still growing vertically, although their final fate cannot be determined by snapshot observations.