Aircraft Measurements of Cloud–Aerosol Interaction over East Inner Mongolia

• Published in: Advances in atmospheric sciences 2017-08, Vol.34 (8), p.983-992
• Main Authors: Lü, Yuhuan, Lei, Hengchi, Yang, Jiefan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accumulation; Aerosol interaction; Aerosol-cloud interactions; Aerosols; Airborne observation; Aircraft; Atmospheric Sciences; Cloud droplet concentration; Cloud droplet spectra; Cloud-climate relationships; Clouds; Data; Droplets; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Geophysics/Geodesy; LWC; Meteorology; Moisture content; Original Paper; Properties; Scavenging; Scavenging coefficient; Spectra; Variation; Vertical distribution; Water; Water content; 内蒙古东部; 气溶胶; 测量; 液态水含量; 清除作用; 相互作用; 飞机
• ISSN: 0256-1530; 1861-9533
• DOI: 10.1007/s00376-017-6242-z

To investigate the potential effects of aerosols on the microphysical properties of warm clouds, airborne observational data collected from 2009 to 2011 in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, China, were statistically analyzed in this study. The results demonstrated that the vertical distribution of the aerosol number concentration（N_a） was similar to that of the clean rural continent. The average aerosol effective diameter（D_e） was maintained at approximately 0.4 μm at all levels. The data obtained during cloud penetrations showed that there was a progressive increase in the cloud droplet concentration（N_c） and liquid water content（LWC） from outside to inside the clouds, while the Nawas negatively related to the Ncand LWC at the same height. The fluctuation of the N_a, Ncand LWC during cloud penetration was more obvious under polluted conditions（Type 1） than under clean conditions（Type 2）. Moreover, the wet scavenging of cloud droplets had a significant impact on the accumulation mode of aerosols, especially on particles with diameters less than 0.4 μm. The minimum wet scavenging coefficient within the cloud was close to 0.02 under Type 1 conditions, while it increased to 0.1 under Type 2 conditions,which proved that the cloud wet scavenging effect under Type 1 conditions was stronger than that under Type 2 conditions.Additionally, cloud droplet spectra under Type 1 conditions were narrower, and their horizontal distributions were more homogeneous than those under Type 2 conditions.