Comparing Marine Boundary Cloud Albedo Susceptibility with MAGIC and A-Train Data
Abstract
Accurately representing marine boundary layer clouds in models presents a continuing challenge due to the various pathways by which these clouds can evolve through their lifecycles. While it is well known that these clouds are sensitive to the background aerosol state, we hypothesize that the large-scale meteorology plays a governing role in the susceptibility of these clouds to the background aerosol loading. For this reason we explore marine boundary layer cloud albedo susceptibility under various aerosol loadings and large-scale meteorological conditions. We use cloud properties calculated from A-Train data to acquire a broad view but then also examine cloud properties derived from MAGIC data for a more detailed look at the vertical and horizontal cloud structure. We focus our study by characterizing large-scale meteorological conditions during the high winter and high summer months under various aerosol loadings over two different regions over the oceans. These regions include the Northeast Pacific corridor through which the MAGIC program has collected data as well as the Southern Ocean where the large-scale meteorology and aerosol loading is expected to be different from the Northeast Pacific. Statistics are generated for albedo susceptibility as a function of these conditions for each region.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFM.A41A0018F
- Keywords:
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- 3311 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES Clouds and aerosols