A Life-Cycle Based Analysis of Aerosol-Convection Interactions

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.