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Contrasting effects on deep convective clouds by different types of aerosols

J. Jiang,H. Su,Lei Huang,Y. Wang,S. Massie,Bin Zhao,A. Omar,Zhien Wang

Published 2018 in Nature Communications

ABSTRACT

Convective clouds produce a significant proportion of the global precipitation and play an important role in the energy and water cycles. We quantify changes of the convective cloud ice mass-weighted altitude centroid (ZIWC) as a function of aerosol optical thickness (AOT). Analyses are conducted in smoke, dust and polluted continental aerosol environments over South America, Central Africa and Southeast Asia, using the latest measurements from the CloudSat and CALIPSO satellites. We find aerosols can inhibit or invigorate convection, depending on aerosol type and concentration. On average, smoke tends to suppress convection and results in lower ZIWC than clean clouds. Polluted continental aerosol tends to invigorate convection and promote higher ZIWC. The dust aerosol effects are regionally dependent and their signs differ from place to place. Moreover, we find that the aerosol inhibition or invigoration effects do not vary monotonically with AOT and the variations depend strongly on aerosol type. Our observational findings indicate that aerosol type is one of the key factors in determining the aerosol effects on convective clouds. Aerosol effects on convection have been debated for decades when all types of aerosols are lumped together in the analyses. Using NASA satellite measurements, the authors find strong evidence that smoke inhibits convection but polluted continental aerosols invigorate convection.

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