Identification

Title

Aerosol-CO relationship and aerosol effect on ice cloud particle size: Analyses from Aura Microwave Limb Sounder and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer observations

Abstract

We examine the relation between Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and Aura Microwave Limb Sounder upper tropospheric (UT) carbon monoxide (CO) to address when CO can be used as a proxy for aerosols. Ice cloud effective radii (re), also from Aqua MODIS, are also analyzed to investigate possible aerosol effects on ice clouds. Our analysis focuses on five regions where ice clouds are collocated with high UT CO loadings: South America (SAM), southern Africa (SAF), northern Africa (NAF), South Asia (SAS), and East Asia (EAS). We find three levels of AOT to CO sensitivity. High AOT sensitivity to CO is characterized by a rapid increase of AOT when CO increases. SAM in August–November and SAF in June–September fall into this category. Moderate AOT sensitivity to CO is characterized by moderate increase of AOT with CO. It includes SAF in October–May, NAF in January–March, SAS in all months, and EAS in August–September. The other months for each region fall into the low sensitivity category. The variations of sensitivity in different regions and seasons result from different emission sources coupled with dynamic influence. CO can be used as an aerosol proxy for the “high” and “moderate” sensitivity cases. During those times, re for polluted clouds is smaller than that for clean clouds, suggesting an indirect effect of aerosol on ice clouds. CO is not a good aerosol index in the low sensitivity cases, in which polluted clouds defined by CO loadings do not show significant differences from clean clouds in re.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bg2q0h

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

2009-10-30T00:00:00Z

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