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Enhancement of cloud cover and suppression of nocturnal drizzle in stratocumulus polluted by haze
Author(s) -
Ackerman A. S.,
Toon O. B.,
Stevens D. E.,
Coakley J. A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2002gl016634
Subject(s) - drizzle , overcast , environmental science , marine stratocumulus , atmospheric sciences , cloud cover , liquid water path , cloud fraction , cloud top , meteorology , liquid water content , satellite , haze , mesoscale meteorology , cloud computing , climatology , sky , precipitation , aerosol , geology , geography , physics , astronomy , computer science , operating system
Recent satellite observations indicate a significant decrease of cloud water in ship tracks, in contrast to an ensemble of in situ ship‐track measurements showing no average change in cloud water relative to the surrounding clouds, and contrary to the expectation of cloud water increasing in polluted clouds. We find through large‐eddy simulations of stratocumulus that the trend in the satellite data is likely an artifact of sampling only overcast clouds. The simulations instead show cloud cover increasing with droplet concentrations. The simulations also show that increases in cloud water from suppressing drizzle by increasing droplet concentrations are favored at night or at extremely low droplet concentrations.