A Life-Cycle Based Analysis of Aerosol-Convection Interactions

Philip Stier1, Sarah Taylor2, Edward Gryspeerdt3, Bethan White4 and Nick Schutgens2, (1)University of Oxford, Department of Physics, Oxford, United Kingdom, (2)University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, (3)University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, (4)Monash University, Clayton, Australia
Abstract:
Aerosol-cloud interactions arguably remain the single greatest uncertainty among anthropogenic perturbations of the climate system. In particular interactions between aerosols and convection remain highly uncertain.

Most of the satellite-based work on aerosol-convection interactions has been based on data from sun-synchronous polar orbiting satellites. While these instruments often offer superior data quality, they capture only a certain stage of the convective life-cycle.

In this work we combine results from polar orbiting instruments, such as CloudSat, with the analysis of geostationary SEVIRI data to provide novel insights into the convective lifecycle and aerosol-convection interactions. Automated tracking of individual convective cells in high time-resolution SEVIRI data allows us to composite complementary satellite data sources, providing novel insights into the convective lifecycle and aerosol-convection interactions. Complementary cloud-resolving WRF simulations help to untangle aerosol-convection interactions from meteorological covariablity as well as to assess sampling biases in the satellite datasets.

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