Identification

Title

Dispersion of droplet size distributions in supercooled non‐precipitating stratocumulus from aircraft observations obtained during the Southern Ocean Cloud Radiation Aerosol Transport Experimental Study

Abstract

The characteristics of cloud droplet size distributions and statistical relations of the relative dispersion (epsilon) with the vertical velocity (w) and with the interstitial aerosol concentration (N-ia) are investigated for ubiquitous supercooled shallow stratocumulus observed over the Southern Ocean (SO) using aircraft measurements obtained during the Southern Ocean Cloud Radiation Aerosol Transport Experimental Study. Distinct vertical variations have been found using 36 non-precipitating cloud profiles. The cloud droplet effective radius (r(e)) increases nearly monotonically from 5.3 +/- 1.9 mu m at cloud base to 9.4 +/- 2.2 mu m at cloud top. The epsilon decreases rapidly from cloud base (0.42 +/- 0.13) and then remains relatively constant in the upper cloud layer (0.27 +/- 0.09). This study also shows robust dependence of epsilon on both N-ia and w. The epsilon increases (decreases) with increasing N-ia (w) at a 95% confidence level when values of w (low N-ia) are restricted to a small range. The important roles of aerosols and dynamics on epsilon are demonstrated and are crucial to estimating aerosol indirect radiative forcing, especially for pristine SO regions where models almost universally underestimate reflected radiation.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pg1w43

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

2021-03-27T00:00:00Z

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