Open AccessA correlative study on the relationship between modeled anthropogenic aerosol concentration and satellite‐observed cloud properties over east Asia
Author(s) -
Kawamoto K.,
Hayasaka T.,
Uno I.,
Ohara T.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2005jd006919
Subject(s) - aerosol , satellite , effective radius , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , cloud computing , radius , liquid water content , east asia , meteorology , cloud height , climatology , cloud cover , geology , geography , physics , astrophysics , computer security , archaeology , astronomy , galaxy , computer science , china , operating system
Vertically integrated anthropogenic aerosol mass concentration M a and low‐level water cloud properties (optical depth τ , effective particle radius r e , and columnar droplet number N c ) were correlated over east Asia to elucidate human‐induced effects on low‐cloud properties. Aerosol and cloud properties were obtained from numerical simulations and satellite observations, respectively. Monthly averages of geographical matches between collocated M a and cloud properties for three seasons showed that as M a increased, τ and N c increased and r e decreased, which is consistent with the Twomey effect. Their changing rates became less steep when M a was large. However, the importance of a dynamical effect was also suggested. A comparison of different cloud top heights revealed that values of τ and r e of middle and lower clouds followed those of the total water cloud cases and reflected vertical characteristics.