Identification

Title

Biomass burning smoke and its influence on clouds over the Western U.S.

Abstract

Small cumulus clouds over the western United States were measured via airborne instruments during the wildfire season in summer of 2018. Statistics of the sampled clouds are presented and compared to smoke aerosol properties. Cloud droplet concentrations were enhanced in regions impacted by biomass burning smoke, at times exceeding 3,000 cm(-3). Images and elemental composition of individual smoke particles and cloud droplet residuals are presented and show that most are dominantly organic, internally mixed with some inorganic elements. Despite their high organic content and relatively low hygroscopicity, on average about half of smoke aerosol particles >80 nm diameter formed cloud droplets. This reduced cloud droplet size in small, smoke-impacted clouds. A number of complex and competing climatic impacts may result from wide-spread reductions in cloud droplet size due to wildfires prevalent across the region during summer months.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bg2sf5

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

2021-08-01T00:00:00Z

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