AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Observations of the Marine Boundary Layer in the Remote North Atlantic: The Impact of Limited Nuclei on Cloud Properties
EWAN CROSBIE, Richard Moore, Luke Ziemba, Gao Chen, Johnathan Hair, Michael Shook, Kenneth Thornhill, Edward Winstead, Armin Wisthaler, Bruce Anderson, NASA
Abstract Number: 509 Working Group: Aerosols, Clouds, and Climate
Abstract Five research flights were conducted over the remote North Atlantic Ocean during the first deployment of the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) in November 2015. During these flights, near-surface aerosol and trace gas concentrations were very low indicating a scarcity of locally produced or regionally transported particles, which could serve as nuclei in the activation of cloud droplets. As a result, low cloud droplet number concentrations were observed and, during several flights, rapid onset of precipitation was apparent in warm clouds despite modest liquid water content and shallow cloud depths. We present in-situ and remote sensing data from these case flights and examine relationships between microphysics and dynamics to evaluate processes driving cloud variability over the remote oceans.