Identification

Title

Quantifying the impact of dust on heterogeneous ice generation in midlevel supercooled stratiform clouds

Abstract

Dust aerosols have been regarded as effective ice nuclei (IN), but large uncertainties regarding their efficiencies remain. Here, four years of collocated CALIPSO and CloudSat measurements are used to quantify the impact of dust on heterogeneous ice generation in midlevel supercooled stratiform clouds (MSSCs) over the 'dust belt'. The results show that the dusty MSSCs have an up to 20% higher mixed-phase cloud occurrence, up to 8 dBZ higher mean maximum Ze (Ze_max), and up to 11.5 g/m2 higher ice water path (IWP) than similar MSSCs under background aerosol conditions. Assuming similar ice growth and fallout history in similar MSSCs, the significant differences in Ze_max between dusty and non-dusty MSSCs reflect ice particle number concentration differences. Therefore, observed Ze_max differences indicate that dust could enhance ice particle concentration in MSSCs by a factor of 2 to 6 at temperatures colder than -12°C. The enhancements are strongly dependent on the cloud top temperature, large dust particle concentration and chemical compositions. These results imply an important role of dust particles in modifying mixed-phase cloud properties globally.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7j38t94

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

2012-09-26T00:00:00Z

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

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