Overview and statistical analysis of boundary layer clouds and precipitation over the western North Atlantic Ocean

作者：Simon Kirschler, Christiane Voigt, B. E. Anderson, Gao Chen, Ewan Crosbie, R. A. Ferrare, Valerian Hahn, Johnathan W. Hair, Stefan Kaufmann, Richard H. Moore, David Painemal, Claire Robinson, Kevin J. Sanchez, Amy Jo Scarino, Taylor Shingler, Michael A. Shook, K. L. Thornhill, Edward L. Winstead, Luke D. Ziemba, Armin Sorooshian · 发表于：Atmospheric chemistry and physics · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.5194/acp-23-10731-2023 · 被引用次数：29 · 研究领域：Atmospheric aerosols and clouds、Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols、Atmospheric Ozone and Climate

Abstract. Due to their fast evolution and large natural variability in macro- and microphysical properties, the accurate representation of boundary layer clouds in current climate models remains a challenge. One of the regions with large intermodel spread in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 ensemble is the western North Atlantic Ocean. Here, statistically representative in situ measurements can help to develop and constrain the parameterization of clouds in global models. To this end, we performed comprehensive measurements of boundary layer clouds, aerosol, trace gases, and radiation in the western North Atlantic Ocean during the NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) mission. In total, 174 research flights with 574 flight hours for cloud and precipitation measurements were performed with the HU-25 Falcon during three winter (February–March 2020, January–April 2021, and November 2021–March 2022) and three summer seasons (August–September 2020, May–June 2021, and May–June 2022). Here we present a statistical evaluation of 16 140 individual cloud events probed by the fast cloud droplet probe and the two-dimensional stereo cloud probe during 155 research flights in a representative and repetitive flight strategy allowing for robust statistical data analyses. We show that the vertical profiles of distributions of the liquid water content and the cloud droplet effective diameter (ED) increase with altitude in t...