AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Microphysics of Amazonian Aerosol under Background Conditions
JIAN WANG, Radek Krejci, Scott Giangrande, Chongai Kuang, Henrique Barbosa, Joel Brito, Samara Carbone, Xuguang Chi, Jennifer Comstock, Florian Ditas, Jost Lavric, Hanna Manninen, Fan Mei, Daniel Moran-Zuloaga, Christopher Pöhlker, Mira Pöhlker, Jorge Saturno, Beat Schmid, Rodrigo A. F. Souza, Stephen Springston, Jason Tomlinson, Tami Toto, David Walter, Daniela Wimmer, et al., Brookhaven National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 606 Working Group: Aerosols, Clouds, and Climate
Abstract Aerosol particles can strongly influence the radiative properties of clouds, and they represent one of the largest uncertainties in computer simulations of climate change. The large uncertainty is in large part due to a poor understanding of processes under natural conditions, which serves as the baseline to measure change against. Understanding the processes under natural conditions is critical for a reliable assessment and quantification of ongoing and future climate change. The Amazon rainforest is one of the few continental regions where aerosol particles and their precursors can be studied under near-natural conditions.
The Observations and Modeling of the Green Ocean Amazon (GoAmazon 2014/5) campaign took place from January 2014 to December 2015 in the vicinity of Manaus, Brazil. One main objective of GoAmazon 2014/5 is to investigate the aerosol lifecycle under background conditions. Here we present the variation of aerosol size distribution observed at the T0a background site (Amazon Tall Tower Observatory, 150 km upwind of Manaus) during the wet season from March 1 to May 31, 2014. Air masses arriving at T0a during the wet season are typically brought by the north-easterly trade winds and travel across at least 1000 km of undeveloped tropical rainforest, therefore are generally clean. Also shown are vertical distributions of aerosol observed onboard the DOE Gulfstream-1 research aircraft. The sources and sinks of the boundary layer aerosol particles under the background conditions, and their impact on CCN budget will be discussed.