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Stratus cloud supersaturations
Author(s) -
Hudson James G.,
Noble Stephen,
Jha Vandana
Publication year - 2010
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 - 10.1029/2010gl045197
Subject(s) - cloud condensation nuclei , aerosol , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , cloud computing , range (aeronautics) , physics , materials science , computer science , composite material , operating system
A wide range of California coastal stratus cloud droplet concentrations (N c ) were compared with CCN spectra to provide numerous estimates of cloud supersaturations (S). These revealed the predicted decrease of S with higher CCN concentrations (N CCN ). A significant result was frequent stratus cloud S significantly above 0.3%, especially for more maritime N CCN and N c (i.e., <300 cm −3 ). This means that much smaller and more numerous particles than previously considered interact with the most important clouds for the indirect aerosol effect.