scholarly journals Impact of dust-cloud-radiation interactions on surface albedo: a case study of "Tiramisu" snow in Urumqi, China

Author(s):  
Siyu Chen ◽  
Hongru Bi ◽  
Renhe Zhang ◽  
Yong Wang ◽  
Jianping Guo ◽  
...  

Abstract Dust-cloud-surface radiation interactions (DCRI) is a complex nonlinear relation referring to the influences of both atmospheric dust and dust-on-snow on surface albedo. A “Tiramisu” snow event occurred on December 1st, 2018, in Urumqi, China, providing an excellent testbed for exploring the comprehensive effect induced by atmospheric dust and those deposited atop fresh snowpack on surface radiation. A detailed analysis indicates that the decrease of snow albedo by 0.17–0.26 (22–34%) is contributed by the effects both the dust-cloud interactions and dust-on-snow at synoptic scale in this case. In particular, dust well mixed with ice clouds at altitudes of 2.5–5.5 km disrupted the “seeder-feeder” structure of clouds and heterogeneous ice nucleation. Dust-induced changes in the low layer of ice cloud (3.3–5.5 km) under a low temperature of –20 °C resulted in a 31.8% increase in the ice particle radius and 84.6% in the ice water path, which acted to indirectly buffer the incident solar radiation reaching the surface. Dust particles deposited on the snow surface further caused snow darkening since the snow albedo was found to decrease by 11.8–23.3%. These findings underscore the importance of considering the comprehensive effect of dust-cloud-radiation interactions in the future.

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (9) ◽  
pp. 1415-1428
Author(s):  
Terhikki Manninen ◽  
Emmihenna Jääskeläinen ◽  
Aku Riihelä

AbstractSurface albedo, the fraction of incoming solar radiation reflected hemispherically by the surface, is an essential climate variable (ECV) directly related to the energy budget of Earth. The presence and properties of snow cover alter surface albedo significantly, with variability in temporal scales reaching from seasonal to diurnal. The diurnal variation of snow albedo is typically parameterized with the solar zenith angle, but it cannot take into account asymmetry with respect to midday. Using the solar azimuth angle instead is suggested, since especially in the melting season the snow albedo varies highly asymmetrically during the day. To derive a general time- and latitude-independent formula, the azimuth angle values are normalized. Baseline Surface Radiation Network data are used to derive an empirical formula for the diurnal variation of snow black-sky surface albedo. The overall accuracy is on the order of 0.02, and the relative accuracy is about 3%.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Lucie Leonarski ◽  
Laurent C.-Labonnote ◽  
Mathieu Compiègne ◽  
Jérôme Vidot ◽  
Anthony J. Baran ◽  
...  

The present study aims to quantify the potential of hyperspectral thermal infrared sounders such as the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the future IASI next generation (IASI-NG) for retrieving the ice cloud layer altitude and thickness together with the ice water path. We employed the radiative transfer model Radiative Transfer for TOVS (RTTOV) to simulate cloudy radiances using parameterized ice cloud optical properties. The radiances have been computed from an ice cloud profile database coming from global operational short-range forecasts at the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) which encloses the normal conditions, typical variability, and extremes of the atmospheric properties over one year (Eresmaa and McNally (2014)). We performed an information content analysis based on Shannon’s formalism to determine the amount and spectral distribution of the information about ice cloud properties. Based on this analysis, a retrieval algorithm has been developed and tested on the profile database. We considered the signal-to-noise ratio of each specific instrument and the non-retrieved atmospheric and surface parameter errors. This study brings evidence that the observing system provides information on the ice water path (IWP) as well as on the layer altitude and thickness with a convergence rate up to 95% and expected errors that decrease with cloud opacity until the signal saturation is reached (satisfying retrievals are achieved for clouds whose IWP is between about 1 and 300 g/m2).


1895 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 76-93
Author(s):  
John Aitken

There was considerable difficulty in selecting a proper title for this paper. It may appear to some, after reading it, that a shorter and better title would have been, “On the Hazing Effects of Smoke.” But as smoke particles generally reflect a reddish-brown light, they do not therefore seem to be the cause of the whitish light which we call haze; and further, smoke particles generally condense into little masses of such a size that they fall to the ground before they are carried to any great distance. It was thought that as this paper is a continuation of previous work, and is founded on results already communicated to this Society, it would be better to keep to the use of the same terms, and as usual, under the name of “dust particles,” to include all the solid and liquid products of combustion, of whatever size or colour they may be.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (21) ◽  
pp. 8705-8718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bida Jian ◽  
Jiming Li ◽  
Guoyin Wang ◽  
Yongli He ◽  
Ying Han ◽  
...  

Planetary albedo (PA; shortwave broadband albedo) and its long-term variations, which are controlled in a complex way by various atmospheric and surface properties, play a key role in controlling the global and regional energy budget. This study investigates the contributions of different atmospheric and surface properties to the long-term variations of PA based on 13 years (2003–15) of albedo, cloud, and ice coverage datasets from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Single Scanner Footprint edition 4A product, vegetation product from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and surface albedo product from the Cloud, Albedo, and Radiation dataset, version 2 (CLARA-A2). According to the temporal correlation analysis, statistical results indicate that variations in PA are closely related to the variations of cloud properties (e.g., cloud fraction, ice water path, and liquid water path) and surface parameters (e.g., ice/snow percent coverage and normalized difference vegetation index), but their temporal relationships vary among the different regions. Generally, the stepwise multiple linear regression models can capture the observed PA anomalies for most regions. Based on the contribution calculation, cloud fraction dominates the variability of PA in the mid- and low latitudes while ice/snow percent coverage (or surface albedo) dominates the variability in the mid- and high latitudes. Changes in cloud liquid water path and ice water path are the secondary dominant factor over most regions, whereas change in vegetation cover is the least important factor over land. These results verify the effects of atmospheric and surface factors on planetary albedo changes and thus may be of benefit for improving the parameterization of the PA and determining the climate feedbacks.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Su ◽  
Jimmy C.H. Fung

Abstract. The GOCART–Thompson microphysics scheme, which couples the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) model and aerosol-aware Thompson microphysics scheme, has been implemented in the Weather Research and Forecast model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), to quantify and evaluate the effect of dust on the ice nucleation process in the atmosphere by serving as ice nuclei. The performance of the GOCART-Thompson microphysics scheme in simulating the effect of dust in atmospheric ice nucleation is then evaluated over East Asia during spring in 2012, a typical dust-intensive season. Based upon the dust emission reasonably reproduced by WRF-Chem, the effect of dust on atmospheric cloud ice water content is well reproduced. With abundant dust particles serving as ice nuclei, the simulated ice water mixing ratio and ice crystal number concentration increases by one order of magnitude over the dust source region and downwind areas during the investigated period. The comparison with ice water path from satellite observations demonstrated that the simulation of cloud ice profile is substantially improved by applying the GOCART–Thompson microphysics scheme in the simulations. Additional sensitivity experiments are carried out to optimize the parameters in the ice nucleation parameterization in the GOCART–Thompson microphysics scheme, and the results suggest that the calibration factor in the ice nucleation scheme should be set to 3 or 4. Lowering the threshold relative humidity with respect to ice to 100 % for the ice nucleation parameterization leads to further improvement in cloud ice simulation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 5809-5828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Göran Karlsson ◽  
Kati Anttila ◽  
Jörg Trentmann ◽  
Martin Stengel ◽  
Jan Fokke Meirink ◽  
...  

Abstract. The second edition of the satellite-derived climate data record CLARA (The CM SAF Cloud, Albedo And Surface Radiation dataset from AVHRR data – second edition denoted as CLARA-A2) is described. The data record covers the 34-year period from 1982 until 2015 and consists of cloud, surface albedo and surface radiation budget products derived from the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor carried by polar-orbiting, operational meteorological satellites. The data record is produced by the EUMETSAT Climate Monitoring Satellite Application Facility (CM SAF) project as part of the operational ground segment. Its upgraded content and methodology improvements since edition 1 are described in detail, as are some major validation results. Some of the main improvements to the data record come from a major effort in cleaning and homogenizing the basic AVHRR level-1 radiance record and a systematic use of CALIPSO-CALIOP cloud information for development and validation purposes. Examples of applications studying decadal changes in Arctic summer surface albedo and cloud conditions are provided.


1996 ◽  
Vol 150 ◽  
pp. 155-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumita Jayaraman ◽  
Stanley F. Dermott

AbstractThe Earth's resonant ring is populated primarily by asteroidal dust particles because cometary particles have higher Poynting-Robertson drag rates and the Earth's resonances are not strong enough to trap them (Gomes, 1995). It has been shown that asteroidal particles in a limited size range from 5 — 30μm are responsible for the observed trailing/leading flux asymmetry caused by the trailing dust cloud embedded in the ring (Jayaraman and Dermott 1995). The magnitude of the flux asymmetry is a direct function of the area of dust in the ring, which in turn depends upon the number of asteroidal particles in the zodiacal cloud. Using a dynamical model of the ring and the background zodiacal cloud and estimating the surface area of dust needed in the ring to match the observed flux asymmetry in the 25 micron COBE waveband, we have calculated the fraction of asteroidal dust in the zodiacal cloud as a function of p, the slope of the size-frequency distribution of particles.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (16) ◽  
pp. 7753-7761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Min ◽  
R. Li

Abstract. In addition to microphysical changes in clouds, changes in nucleation processes of ice cloud due to aerosols would result in substantial changes in cloud top temperature as mildly supercooled clouds are glaciated through heterogenous nucleation processes. Measurements from multiple sensors on multiple observing platforms over the Atlantic Ocean show that the cloud effective temperature increases with mineral dust loading with a slope of +3.06 °C per unit aerosol optical depth. The macrophysical changes in ice cloud top distributions as a consequence of mineral dust-cloud interaction exert a strong cooling effect (up to 16 Wm−2) of thermal infrared radiation on cloud systems. Induced changes of ice particle size by mineral dusts influence cloud emissivity and play a minor role in modulating the outgoing longwave radiation for optically thin ice clouds. Such a strong cooling forcing of thermal infrared radiation would have significant impacts on cloud systems and subsequently on climate.


2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 2617-2630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Qu ◽  
Alex Hall

Abstract In this paper, the two factors controlling Northern Hemisphere springtime snow albedo feedback in transient climate change are isolated and quantified based on scenario runs of 17 climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. The first factor is the dependence of planetary albedo on surface albedo, representing the atmosphere's attenuation effect on surface albedo anomalies. It is potentially a major source of divergence in simulations of snow albedo feedback because of large differences in simulated cloud fields in Northern Hemisphere land areas. To calculate the dependence, an analytical model governing planetary albedo was developed. Detailed validations of the analytical model for two of the simulations are shown, version 3 of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM3) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory global coupled Climate Model 2.0 (CM2.0), demonstrating that it facilitates a highly accurate calculation of the dependence of planetary albedo on surface albedo given readily available simulation output. In all simulations it is found that surface albedo anomalies are attenuated by approximately half in Northern Hemisphere land areas as they are transformed into planetary albedo anomalies. The intermodel standard deviation in the dependence of planetary albedo on surface albedo is surprisingly small, less than 10% of the mean. Moreover, when an observational estimate of this factor is calculated by applying the same method to the satellite-based International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data, it is found that most simulations agree with ISCCP values to within about 10%, despite further disagreements between observed and simulated cloud fields. This suggests that even large relative errors in simulated cloud fields do not result in significant error in this factor, enhancing confidence in climate models. The second factor, related exclusively to surface processes, is the change in surface albedo associated with an anthropogenically induced temperature change in Northern Hemisphere land areas. It exhibits much more intermodel variability. The standard deviation is about ⅓ of the mean, with the largest value being approximately 3 times larger than the smallest. Therefore this factor is unquestionably the main source of the large divergence in simulations of snow albedo feedback. To reduce the divergence, attention should be focused on differing parameterizations of snow processes, rather than intermodel variations in the attenuation effect of the atmosphere on surface albedo anomalies.


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