Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds: First Results from the LASIC campaign.

 
Poster PDF

Authors

Paquita Zuidema — University of Miami
Rodrigo Delgadillo — University of Miami
Allison C Aiken — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Connor J. Flynn — University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology
Bradley Isom — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Arthur J Sedlacek — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Jianhao Zhang — NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory
Adeyemi A Adebiyi — University of Miami
Yan Feng — Argonne National Laboratory

Category

Warm low clouds, including aerosol interactions

Description

Shortwave-absorbing aerosols emitted by fires in continental Africa are transported far across the remote South Atlantic Ocean, including Ascension Island. The processes by which the semi-permanent low cloud deck adjust to the presence of the aerosols are still poorly understood, but possess clear climate impacts. To better understand this regime, ARM has deployed its first Mobile Facility, which includes the Mobile Aerosol Observing System, to Ascension Island as part of the Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC) campaign, spanning June 1, 2016 through October 31, 2017. This 17-month-long period spans two July-October biomass-burning-aerosol seasons. Ascension Island lies in the middle of the southern equatorial Atlantic, at 8S 14W, within the trade-wind boundary-layer cloud regime. Here the subsiding aerosols are more likely to interact microphysically with the deepening boundary layer. This poster presents an overview of what we are learning about the characteristics of the absorbing aerosol from the Mobile AOS, including on the intrinsic radiative aerosol properties, and how the clouds are observed to vary as a function of the aerosol loading and the seasonal cycle. This campaign is unique within ASR and ARM, in that most previous work on aerosol-cloud interactions has focused on scattering aerosol. A particular stress is also placed on presenting the aerosol-cloud vertical structure as determined from a micropulse lidar and the zenith- and scanning radars, as this is crucial for ascertaining the potential for aerosol-cloud microphysical interactions.