Combined effects of fine and coarse marine aerosol on vertical raindrop size distribution

Fan Liu, Daniel Rosenfeld, Zengxin Pan, Lin Zang, Feiyue Mao*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Climate models commonly overestimate warm rain frequency and underestimate its intensity over the ocean, primarily due to insufficient representation of the aerosol effects. This pertains to both fine aerosols (FA) and coarse sea spray aerosols (CSA), where the latter is mostly absent in the models. Here, our observations show that adding CSA enhances vertical warm rain structure, in contrast to the effect of FA. The magnitude of the effect of CSA is larger than the opposite effect of the FA. For rain with top heights of 2–3 km, the raindrop size, concentration, and rain rate can be increased by factors of 1.03, 1.47, and 1.60, respectively. These CSA-induced changes are larger for thicker clouds, reaching a maximum by factors of 1.12, 1.85, and 2.21, respectively. Therefore, the combined FA and CSA effects should be incorporated into climate models for accurately simulated precipitation microphysical processes.

Original languageEnglish
Article number182
Journalnpj Climate and Atmospheric Science
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2024

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© The Author(s) 2024.

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