Identification

Title

Clean and polluted clouds: Relationships among pollution, ice clouds, and precipitation in South America

Abstract

We analyze nearly-simultaneous measurements of ice clouds and pollutants along satellite tracks. We use Aura MLS CO and ice water content measurements at 215 hPa to classify ice clouds as "clean" or "polluted". We then examine Aqua MODIS ice particle effective radius (re) and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) along with TRMM precipitation to investigate how pollution changes ice particle size and precipitation. We find suppressed precipitation and reduced re associated with polluted clouds during the dry season in South America when there is a strong positive correlation between the CO and AOT. In contrast, during the wet season, we find little difference in ice particle size and precipitation between the polluted clouds and the clean clouds, as indicated by the CO levels, when the AOT is significantly lower than that in the dry season.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7c829g2

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright 2008 American Geophysical Union.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-17T15:57:00.018459

Metadata language

eng; USA