Arctic Aerosol-­Cloud Interactions during ASCOS

Abstract:

A decrease in Arctic sea ice extent and thickness has been observed within recent decades. Further decreases are expected to increase the fluxes aerosol and precursor gases from the open ocean surface within the Arctic. The resulting increase in cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations would be expected to result in increased cloud albedo (Struthers et al, 2011), leading to potentially large changes in radiative forcings.

However, Browse et al. (2014) have shown that these increases in condensable material could also result in the growth of existing particles to sizes where they are more efficiently removed by wet deposition in drizzling stratocumulus clouds, ultimately decreasing CCN concentrations in the high Arctic. The study of Browse et al (2014) was limited in that it did not simulate alterations of dynamics or cloud properties due to either changes in heat and moisture fluxes following sea­-ice loss or changing aerosol concentrations.

Taken together, the results of Struthers et al (2011) and Browse et al (2014) show that significant uncertainties remain in trying to quantify aerosol­-cloud processes in the poorly understood Arctic system. It is likely that the CCN response to sea-­ice loss is controlled by many interrelated processes and unlikely that the current representation of these processes in global climate models include is sufficient to realistically simulate long­-term changes.

Using the Met Office Unified Model (UM) including Cloud AeroSol Interactions Microphysics (CASIM), we perform a case study of summertime high Arctic (>80N) clouds in order to better understand the processes currently governing Arctic clouds, and how they may change in the future. We compare our results with observations obtained during the 2008 ASCOS campaign. We then perform sensitivity studies to assess the changes in cloud properties to reductions in sea­-ice, through either changes in fluxes of surface heat and moisture or changes in fluxes of aerosol and precursor gases.

Browse, J., et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14(14), 7543–7557, doi:10.5194/acp-14-7543-2014, 2014.

Struthers, H., et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11(7), 3459–3477, doi:10.5194/acp-11-3459-2011, 2011.