Identification

Title

Coalescence scavenging drives droplet number concentration in Southern Ocean low clouds

Abstract

Cloud droplet number concentration (N-d) is a key microphysical property that is largely controlled by the balance between sources and sinks of aerosols that serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Despite being a key sink of CCN, the impact of coalescence scavenging on Southern Ocean (SO) cloud is poorly known. We apply a simple source-and-sink budget model based on parameterizations to austral summer aircraft observations to test model behavior and examine the relative influence of processes that determine N-d in SO stratocumulus clouds. The model predicts N-d with little bias and a correlation coefficient of similar to 0.7 compared with observations. Coalescence scavenging is found to be an important sink of CCN in both liquid and mixed-phase precipitating stratocumulus and reduces the predicted N-d by as much as 90% depending on the precipitation rate. The free tropospheric aerosol source controls N-d more strongly than the surface aerosol source during austral summer.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76m3bgr

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-04-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact