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What is the effect of cloud inhomogeneities on actinic fluxes and chemical species concentrations?
Author(s) -
Bouet Christel,
Szczap Frédéric,
Leriche Maud,
Benassi Albert
Publication year - 2006
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 - 10.1029/2005gl024727
Subject(s) - homogeneous , cloud computing , troposphere , oxidizing agent , photodissociation , flux (metallurgy) , plane (geometry) , atmospheric sciences , physics , computation , computational physics , statistical physics , chemical physics , environmental science , materials science , chemistry , photochemistry , computer science , geometry , mathematics , organic chemistry , algorithm , metallurgy , operating system
The purpose of the present paper is to evaluate the bias introduced by the commonly used homogeneous plane‐parallel cloud hypothesis in the computation of actinic fluxes, photolysis coefficients, and main tropospheric species concentrations. Accordingly, these quantities obtained for an inhomogeneous cloud field generated with a stochastic model are compared to their homogeneous plane‐parallel equivalent. Results show that neglecting cloud inhomogeneities has a significant impact on actinic flux. For instance, the bias introduced by the homogeneous plane‐parallel cloud hypothesis can reach more than 100% below the cloud leading to a comparable bias in photolysis coefficients and, in turn, creating an enhancement of the oxidizing capacity of the system.