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2011 Science Team Meeting Summary Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Science Team Meeting March 28–April 1, 2011 September 2011 Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research Atmospheric System Research (ASR) September 2011 Science Team Meeting Contents 1.0 Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 1 2.0 Aerosol-Cloud-Radiation Interactions .................................................................................................. 2 3.0 Aerosol Properties .............................................................................................................................. 21 4.0 Atmospheric State & Surface ............................................................................................................. 43 5.0 Cloud Properties ................................................................................................................................. 50 6.0 Dynamics/Vertical Motion ................................................................................................................. 78 7.0 Field Campaigns ................................................................................................................................. 83 8.0 Infrastructure & Outreach ................................................................................................................. 102 9.0 Instruments ....................................................................................................................................... 111 10.0 Modeling ........................................................................................................................................... 124 11.0 Precipitation ...................................................................................................................................... 150 12.0 Radiation ........................................................................................................................................... 153 13.0 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 160 iii Atmospheric System Research (ASR) September 2011 Science Team Meeting 1.0 Executive Summary Introduction This document contains the summaries of papers presented in poster format at the 2011 Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Science Team Meeting held in San Antonio, Texas. More than 240 posters were presented during the Science Team Meeting. Posters were sorted into the following subject areas: aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions, aerosol properties, atmospheric state and surface, cloud properties, dynamics/vertical motion, field campaigns, infrastructure and outreach, instruments, modeling, precipitation, and radiation. To put these posters in context, the status of ASR at the time of the meeting is provided here. Background The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric System Research (ASR) is an observation-based research program created in October 2009 to advance process-level understanding of the key interactions among aerosols, clouds, precipitation, radiation, dynamics, and thermodynamics using data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The ARM Facility is a DOE scientific user facility for the study of global climate change by the national and international research community. Planned enhancements to the ARM Facility, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, were implemented in 2010 and 2011 and resulted in 143 new instruments and increased research capabilities for the ARM user community, including ASR scientists. A tight coupling of the ARM Climate Research Facility and ASR will allow the atmospheric system to be better observed and understood in a comprehensive, end-to-end fashion. ASR is designed to recognize the atmospheric system as an aerosol-cloud-precipitation continuum operating within a microphysical and macrophysical environment characterized by radiation, dynamics (including meteorology), and thermodynamics. That continuum stretches seamlessly across scales from gases and primary particles emitted to the atmosphere, through evolving aerosol populations, to the clouds that form on aerosol particles, and the cloud systems that produce precipitation to complete the hydrologic cycle. ASR’s defining objective is a detailed, process-level understanding of this system that leads to improved simulations by climate models. References Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Science and Program Plan. 2010. U.S. Department of Energy. http://science.energy.gov/~/media/ber/pdf/Atmospheric_system_research_science_plan.pdf. 1 Atmospheric System Research (ASR) September 2011 Science Team Meeting 2.0 Aerosol-Cloud-Radiation Interactions 3D effects on spectrally invariant behavior near cloud edges: implications for retrieving aerosol and cloud properties in these challenging regions J.-Y. Christine Chiu, University of Reading Alexander Marshak, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Yuri Knyazikhin, Boston University Warren Wiscombe, Brookhaven National Laboratory Tamas Varnai, UMBC/JCET Hailong Wang, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Fuzzy cloud edges, with the transition from cloudy to clear air spanning as little as 50 m to as much as several hundred meters, are the battleground where the fate of aerosol indirect forcing is decided. However, measuring aerosol and cloud properties near and within cloud edges from remotely sensed data remains problematic because the separation between cloudy and clear air is always ambiguous, and because effects of the 3D nature of clouds on measurements need to be considered. Recently, we discovered a surprising spectrally invariant behavior in zenith radiance spectra measured by the shortwave spectrometer of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The relationship suggests that the shortwave spectrum near cloud edges can be determined by a linear combination of zenith radiance spectra of the cloudy and clear regions. More importantly, 1D radiative transfer calculations show that the relationship is mainly determined by cloud properties and is insensitive to aerosol properties and the underlying surface type. Here, we will demonstrate how 3D effects may modulate the spectrally invariant relationships. We will also show the extent to which the general conclusions drawn from 1D calculations hold in 3D calculations, which will shed light on development of a new retrieval method that works for cloud edges. 2 Atmospheric System Research (ASR) September 2011 Science Team Meeting Aerosol-induced changes of convective clouds observed from ground-based observations and CloudSat/CALIPSO Feng Niu, University of Maryland - College Park Zhanqing Li, University of Maryland Aerosols have strong impacts on deep convective clouds and associated precipitation through complex microphysical or thermodynamic effects. Using 10-year ground-based observations, we show that warm base mixed-phase clouds in summer are strongly invigorated by aerosols, while this effect does not exist for shallow warm clouds. This finding is Precipitation rate (A) and corresponding cloud-top temperature further confirmed by using a large (B) from CloudSat as functions of AI for mixed-phase (blue dots) ensemble of satellite data acquired by the and liquid clouds (red dots) over the tropical ocean. Note that Moderate Resolution Imaging only clouds with precipitation rates greater than 1 mm/h are Spectroradiometer onboard the Earth included here. The right-hand y-axis of (B) represents the cloud- Observing System’s Aqua platform, the top temperatures of liquid clouds. CBT and CTT stand for cloud CloudSat cloud profiling radar, and the base and cloud top temperature, respectively. Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite over the tropical regions. We identified two distinct responses of clouds and precipitation to increases in aerosol loading. Cloud-top temperatures decrease significantly with increasing aerosol index (AI) over oceans and aerosol optical depth (AOT) over land for mixed-phase clouds with warm cloud bases; no significant changes were found for liquid clouds. The distinct responses are explained by two mechanisms, namely, the aerosol invigoration effect and the microphysical effect. Aerosols can significantly invigorate convection mainly through ice processes, while precipitation from liquid clouds is suppressed through aerosol microphysical processes. Precipitation rates are found to increase with AI for mixed-phase clouds, but decrease for liquid clouds, suggesting that the dominant effect differs for the two types of clouds. These effects change the overall distribution of precipitation rates, leading to more or heavier rains in dirty environments than in cleaner ones. Aerosol effects on shallow cumulus clouds in a global model Steven Ghan, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Sungsu Park, National Center for Atmospheric Research Almost all previous efforts to represent aerosol effects on clouds in global models have been limited to effects on stratiform clouds. We have applied a parameterization of droplet nucleation to shallow cumulus clouds represented in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM5), including the effects of entrainment, and have expressed the cloud optical properties in terms of the diagnosed droplet number. We will compare estimates
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