Aerosol Indirect Effects from the Cloud to Climate Scale: Implications of Observational Scale for Constraining Forcing (Invited)

Scale is a critical variable for evaluating process and thus for constraining models with measurements. Considerations of scale become increasingly complex for processes such as aerosol-cloud interactions that require multi-parametric analyses for their assessment. Further, aerosol-cloud interactions are driven by microphysical processes but manifest in changes to the radiation budget at larger, integrated scales of interest to climate. Changes in various cloud and radiative properties along this range of scales can be used to assess indirect effects, however, they are not necessarily all equivalent. Care must be taken in how measurements are used to quantify process and how the resulting metrics are integrated into models. In this talk I will review the impact of averaging scale and observational approach (platform) on metrics for quantifying aerosol-cloud interactions. Relationships among a range of parameters at a range of scales will then be examined to provide insight into the potential for these different measurements to be used in constraining models. Ground-based and airborne in situ and remote sensing measurements at high temporal resolution along with satellite remote sensing will be used to provide aerosol and cloud parameters at a range of scales and perspectives.