Identification

Title

The effects of mineral dust particles, aerosol regeneration and ice nucleation parameterizations on clouds and precipitation

Abstract

This study focuses on the effects of aerosol particles on the formation of convective clouds and precipitation in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, with a special emphasis on the role of mineral dust particles in these processes. We used a new detailed numerical cloud microphysics scheme that has been implemented in the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model in order to study aerosol-cloud interaction in 3-D configuration based on 1° × 1° resolution reanalysis meteorological data. Using a number of sensitivity studies, we tested the contribution of mineral dust particles and different ice nucleation parameterizations to precipitation development. In this study we also investigated the importance of recycled (regenerated) aerosols that had been released to the atmosphere following the evaporation of cloud droplets. The results showed that increased aerosol concentration due to the presence of mineral dust enhanced the formation of ice crystals. The dynamic evolution of the cloud system sets the time periods and regions in which heavy or light precipitation occurred in the domain. The precipitation rate, the time and duration of precipitation were affected by the aerosol properties only at small spatial scales (with areas of about 20 km2). Changes of the ice nucleation scheme from ice supersaturation-dependent parameterization to a recent approach of aerosol concentration and temperature-dependent parameterization modified the ice crystals concentrations but did not affect the total precipitation in the domain. Aerosol regeneration modified the concentration of cloud droplets at cloud base by dynamic recirculation of the aerosols but also had only a minor effect on precipitation. The major conclusion from this study is that the effect of mineral dust particles on clouds and total precipitation is limited by the properties of the atmospheric dynamics and the only effect of aerosol on precipitation may come from significant increase in the concentration of accumulation mode aerosols. In addition, the presence of mineral dust had a much smaller effect on the total precipitation than on its spatial distribution.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7t72j62

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

2012-10-12T00:00:00Z

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