Search results for "forcing"

Sensitivity of the atmospheric temperature profile to the aerosol absorption in the presence of dust

2014

Abstract Radiative transfer simulations in the shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) spectral regions have been carried out to investigate the time evolution of the atmospheric heating/cooling rates and their influence on the temperature profiles under different vertical distributions of the aerosol absorption. The case study is based on measurements made at Rome, Italy, on 20 June 2007, when a dust layer was present above the urban boundary layer (BL) and the column aerosol optical depth at 550 nm was about 0.37. Column-integrated aerosol optical depth and single scattering albedo, as well as vertical profiles of aerosol extinction and meteorological variables have been derived from observation…

Altitude-resolved shortwave and longwave radiative effects of desert dust in the Mediterranean during the GAMARF campaign: Indications of a net daily…

2015

Desert dust interacts with shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation, influencing the Earth radiation budget and the atmospheric vertical structure. Uncertainties on the dust role are large in the LW spectral range, where few measurements are available and the dust optical properties are not well constrained. The first airborne measurements of LW irradiance vertical profiles over the Mediterranean were carried out during the Ground-based and Airborne Measurements of Aerosol Radiative Forcing (GAMARF) campaign, which took place in spring 2008 at the island of Lampedusa. The experiment was aimed at estimating the vertical profiles of the SW and LW aerosol direct radiative forcing (ADRF) and …

2012

Abstract. We present a numerical modelling study investigating the impact of mineral dust on cloud formation over the Eastern Mediterranean for two case studies: (i) 25 September 2008 and (ii) 28/29 January 2003. In both cases dust plumes crossed the Mediterranean and interacted with clouds forming along frontal systems. For our investigation we used the fully online coupled model WRF-chem. The results show that increased aerosol concentrations due to the presence of mineral dust can enhance the formation of ice crystals. This leads to slight shifts of the spatial and temporal precipitation patterns compared to scenarios where dust was not considered to act as ice nuclei. However, the total…

Temporally delineated sources of major chemical species in high Arctic snow

2018

Long-range transport of aerosol from lower latitudes to the high Arctic may be a significant contributor to climate forcing in the Arctic. To identify the sources of key contaminants entering the Canadian High Arctic an intensive campaign of snow sampling was completed at Alert, Nunavut, from September 2014 to June 2015. Fresh snow samples collected every few days were analyzed for black carbon, major ions, and metals, and this rich data set provided an opportunity for a temporally refined source apportionment of snow composition via positive matrix factorization (PMF) in conjunction with FLEXPART (FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model) potential emission sensitivity analysis. Seven source fac…

Estimation of the time lag occurring between vegetation indices and aridity indices in a Sicilian semi-arid catchment

2009

The evolution of drought phenomena in a Sicilian semi-arid catchment has been analyzed processing both remote sensing images and climatic data for the period 1985-2000. The remote sensing dataset includes Landsat TM and ETM+ multispectral images, while the climatic dataset includes monthly rainfall and air temperature. The results have been specifically discussed for areas where it is possible to neglect agricultural activities and vegetation growth is only influenced by natural forcing. The main outcome of this study is the quantification of the time lag between the remote sensing retrieved vegetation indices and the aridity indices (AIs) calculated from climatic data. Moreover the obtaine…

Enhanced Tropospheric Wave Forcing of Two Anticyclones in the Prephase of the January 2009 Major Stratospheric Sudden Warming Event

2017

Monthly Weather Review, 145 (5)

Spectral surface albedo over Morocco and its impact on radiative forcing of Saharan dust

2011

In May–June 2006, airborne and ground-based solar (0.3–2.2 μm) and thermal infrared (4–42 μm) radiation measurements have been performed in Morocco within the Saharan Mineral Dust Experiment (SAMUM). Upwelling and downwelling solar irradiances have been measured using the Spectral Modular Airborne Radiation Measurement System (SMART)-Albedometer. With these data, the areal spectral surface albedo for typical surface types in southeastern Morocco was derived from airborne measurements for the first time. The results are compared to the surface albedo retrieved from collocated satellite measurements, and partly considerable deviations are observed. Using measured surface and atmospheric prope…

Late Holocene precipitation and temperature changes in Northern Europe linked with North Atlantic forcing

2015

Influence of heterogeneous freezing on the microphysical and radiative properties of orographic cirrus clouds

2013

The influence of heterogeneous freezing on the microphysical and optical properties of orographic cirrus clouds has been simulated with the large eddy simulation model EULAG. Idealised simulations with different concentrations of ice nuclei (IN) in a dynamically dominated regime with high vertical velocities have been performed. Furthermore the temperature at cloud formation as well as the critical supersaturation for initiation of heterogenous freezing have been varied. The shortwave, longwave and net cloud forcing has been calculated under the assumption that the clouds form between 06:00 and 12:00 local time (LT) or between 12:00 and 18:00 LT. In general it can be seen that the onset of …

Microphysical and radiative changes in cirrus clouds by geoengineering the stratosphere

2013

[1] In the absence of tangible progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the implementation of solar radiation management has been suggested as measure to stop global warming. Here we investigate the impacts on northern midlatitude cirrus from continuous SO2emissions of 2–10 Mt/a in the tropical stratosphere. Transport of geoengineering aerosols into the troposphere was calculated along trajectories based on ERA Interim reanalyses using ozone concentrations to quantify the degree of mixing of stratospheric and tropospheric air termed “troposphericity”. Modeled size distributions of the geoengineered H2SO4-H2O droplets have been fed into a cirrus box model with spectral microphysics. Th…