Aerosol has complex effects on clouds and precipitation that may augment or offset each other contingent upon a variety of variables. As a result, its long-term impact on climate is largely unknown. Using 10 years of the US Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) measurements, strong aerosol effects of climatologically significance are detected. With increasing total aerosol number concentration (condensation nucleus, CN) measured near the ground, both cloud top height and precipitation change systematically for mix-phase clouds of warm-base (cloud base
Revised: February 15, 2012 |
Published: December 1, 2011
Citation
Li Z., F. Niu, J. Fan, Y. Liu, D. Rosenfeld, and Y. Ding. 2011.Long-term impacts of aerosols on the vertical development of clouds and precipitation.Nature Geoscience 4, no. 12:888-894.PNNL-SA-77756.doi:10.1038/NGEO1313