Seasonally Transported Aerosol Layers over Southeast Atlantic are Closer to Underlying Clouds than Previously Reported.

Autor: Rajapakshe C; Physics Department, UMBC, Baltimore, MD., Zhang Z; Physics Department, UMBC, Baltimore, MD.; Joint Center for Earth System Technology, UMBC, Baltimore, MD., Yorks JE; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD., Yu H; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD., Tan Q; NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA., Meyer K; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD., Platnick S; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD., Winker DM; NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Geophysical research letters [Geophys Res Lett] 2017 Jun 12; Vol. Volume 44 (Iss 11), pp. 5818-5825.
DOI: 10.1002/2017gl073559
Abstrakt: From June to October, low-level clouds in the Southeast (SE) Atlantic often underlie seasonal aerosol layers transported from African continent. Previously, the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) 532 nm lidar observations have been used to estimate the relative vertical location of the above-cloud aerosols (ACA) to the underlying clouds. Here, we show new observations from NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) lidar. Two seasons of CATS 1064 nm observations reveal that the bottom of the ACA layer is much lower than previously estimated based on CALIPSO 532nm observations. For about 60% of CATS nighttime ACA scenes, the aerosol layer base is within 360 m distance to the top of the underlying cloud. Our results are important for future studies of the microphysical indirect and semi-direct effects of ACA in the SE Atlantic region.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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