Assessing the Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on the Diurnal Cycles of Stratocumulus Clouds over Southeast Atlantic Using WRF-Chem

Abstract:

Southern Africa is the world’s largest emitter of biomass burning aerosols. The westward transport of these wildfire aerosols over the remote southeast Atlantic collocates with the Earth’s major subtropical stratocumulus decks occurring in the marine boundary layer. Wildfire aerosols can significantly perturb the properties of marine stratocumulus through the microphysical effect (as CCN) and the radiative effect (as shortwave absorber); however, the relative importance of these two effects varies within 24 hours mainly due to the diurnal cycle of solar insolation. Given the fact that the strong diurnal cycles of stratocumulus are also largely controlled by the solar insolation, the wildfire aerosols are very likely to exert an additional significant effect on the diurnal cycles of stratocumulus.

To prove this hypothesis, we examine the roles of wildfire aerosols in observed diurnal cycles of stratocumulus clouds using the WRF-Chem model in conjunction with satellite observations. Wildfire aerosol emissions are generated from fire radiative power detected by SEVIRI onboard Meteosat. The wildfire aerosols are treated as the internal mixture of OC, BC, and other inorganic components, and coupled with the microphysics and radiation schemes in WRF-Chem. We thoroughly compare the diurnal variations in modeled cloud properties, such as LWP and cloud fraction among 1) the case with both microphysical and radiative effects of wildfire aerosols (the reference case), 2) the case with only microphysical effect, and 3) the case with no wildfire aerosols. The differences in cloud properties are interpreted as the effects of wildfire aerosol. The wildfire aerosol, cloud, and radiation fields modeled by the reference case are validated against satellite observations, including MODIS aerosol optical depth, cloud fraction/LWP, CALIPSO aerosol-cloud overlapping frequency, and CERES radiative fluxes. The modeling results show that the microphysical effect of wildfire aerosols significantly increases cloud fraction and LWP during the night and morning. From noon to afternoon, the positive changes in cloud fraction and LWP decrease due to a stronger entrainment process. Meanwhile, the radiative effect of wildfire aerosols can slightly mitigate the decreases in cloud fraction and LWP near the coast region.