Search

Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is a suggested climate engineering approach to counteract some consequences of global warming on regional and global scales by increasing the amount of shortwave radiation reflected by shallow marine clouds through the seeding of sea salt aerosol particles. However, assessing the potentials, as well as therisks of MCB requires a multiscale perspective, covering not only the intended and unintended large-scale impacts, but also critical small-scale aspects, e.g., the seeded aerosol size distribution or changes in cloudturbulence, which are usually neglected or only crudely parameterized in large-scale assessments. Therefore, a highly detailed representation of aerosol and cloud microphysics is necessary to reduce these uncertainties. In this talk, we will summarize our recent Lagrangian cloud modeling (LCM) studies that allowed usto assess (a) the implications of the seeded aerosol size distribution on the efficacy of MCB, highlighting unintended consequences of adding either too large or too many aerosol particles, (b) implications for radiative transfer calculations, and (c) first results on the impacts of chemical components in the seeded aerosol. Understanding these small-scale aspects is essential for science-based decision-making on MCB and hence its potential realization in the future., The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)

The Twomey effect describes the radiative forcing associated with a change in cloud albedo due to an increase in anthropogenic aerosol emissions. It is driven by the perturbation in cloud droplet number concentration (Nd,ant) in liquid-water clouds and is currently understood to exert a cooling effect on climate. The Twomey effect is the key driver in the effective radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions, but rapid adjustments also contribute. These adjustments are essentially the responses of cloud fraction and liquid water path to Nd,ant and thus scale approximately with it. While the fundamental physics of the influence of added aerosol particles on the droplet concentration (Nd) is well described by established theory at the particle scale (micrometres), how this relationship is expressed at the large scale (hundreds of kilometres) perturbation, Nd,ant, remains uncertain. The discrepancy between process understanding at particle scale and insufficient quantification at the climate-relevant large scale is caused by co-variability of aerosol particles and updraught velocity and by droplet sink processes. These operate at scales on the order of tens of metres at which only localized observations are available and at which no approach yet exists to quantify the anthropogenic perturbation. Different atmospheric models suggest diverse magnitudes of the Twomey effect even when applying the same anthropogenic aerosol emission perturbation. Thus, observational data are needed to quantify and constrain the Twomey effect. At the global scale, this means satellite data. There are three key uncertainties in determining Nd,ant, namely the quantification of (i) the cloud-active aerosol – the cloud condensation nuclei concentrations (CCN) at or above cloud base –, (ii) Nd, as well as (iii) the statistical approach for inferring the sensitivity of Nd to aerosol particles from the satellite data; (iv) uncertainty in the anthropogenic perturbation to CCN concentrations, that is not easily accessible from observational data. This review discusses deficiencies of current approaches for the different aspects of the problem and proposes several ways forward: In terms of CCN, retrievals of optical quantities such as aerosol optical depth suffer from a lack of vertical resolution, size and hygroscopicity information, the non-direct relation to the concentration of aerosols, the difficulty to quantify it within or below clouds, and the problem of insufficient sensitivity at low concentrations, in addition to retrieval errors. A future path forward can include utilizing colocated polarimeter and lidar instruments, ideally including high spectral resolution lidar capability at two wavelengths to maximize vertically resolved size distribution information content. In terms of Nd, a key problem is the lack of operational retrievals of this quantity, and the inaccuracy of the retrieval especially in broken-cloud regimes. As for the Nd - to - CCN sensitivity, key issues are the updraught distributions and the role of Nd sink processes, for which empirical assessments for specific cloud regimes are currently the best solutions. These considerations point to the conclusion that past studies using existing approaches have likely underestimated the true sensitivity and, thus, the radiative forcing due to the Twomey effect., Quaas, J., Arola, A., Cairns, B., Christensen, M., Deneke, H., Ekman, A. M. L., Feingold, G., Fridlind, A., Gryspeerdt, E., Hasekamp, O., Li, Z., Lipponen, A., Ma, P.-L., Mülmenstädt, J., Nenes, A., Penner, J. E., Rosenfeld, D., Schrödner, R., Sinclair, K., Sourdeval, O., Stier, P., Tesche, M., van Diedenhoven, B., and Wendisch, M.: Constraining the Twomey effect from satellite observations: issues and perspectives, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15079–15099, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15079-2020, 2020.

International audience

Aerosol indirect effects continue to constitute one of the most important uncertainties for anthropogenic climate perturbations. Within the international AEROCOM initiative, the representation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in ten different general circulation models (GCMs) is evaluated using three satellite datasets. The focus is on stratiform liquid water clouds since most GCMs do not include ice nucleation effects, and none of the model explicitly parameterises aerosol effects on convective clouds. We compute statistical relationships between aerosol optical depth (andtau; a) and various cloud and radiation quantities in a manner that is consistent between the models and the satellite data. It is found that the model-simulated influence of aerosols on cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) compares relatively well to the satellite data at least over the ocean. The relationship between andtau;a and liquid water path is simulated much too strongly by the models. This suggests that the implementation of the second aerosol indirect effect mainly in terms of an autoconversion parameterisation has to be revisited in the GCMs. A positive relationship between total cloud fraction (fcld) and andtau; a as found in the satellite data is simulated by the majority of the models, albeit less strongly than that in the satellite data in most of them. In a discussion of the hypotheses proposed in the literature to explain the satellite-derived strong f cldĝ€"andtau;a relationship, our results indicate that none can be identified as a unique explanation. Relationships similar to the ones found in satellite data between andtau;a and cloud top temperature or outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) are simulated by only a few GCMs. The GCMs that simulate a negative OLRĝ€"andtau; a relationship show a strong positive correlation between andtau;a and fcld. The short-wave total aerosol radiative forcing as simulated by the GCMs is strongly influenced by the simulated anthropogenic fraction of andtau;a, and parameterisation assumptions such as a lower bound on Nd. Nevertheless, the strengths of the statistical relationships are good predictors for the aerosol forcings in the models. An estimate of the total short-wave aerosol forcing inferred from the combination of these predictors for the modelled forcings with the satellite-derived statistical relationships yields a global annual mean value of andminus;1.5andplusmn;0.5 Wmandminus;2. In an alternative approach, the radiative flux perturbation due to anthropogenic aerosols can be broken down into a component over the cloud-free portion of the globe (approximately the aerosol direct effect) and a component over the cloudy portion of the globe (approximately the aerosol indirect effect). An estimate obtained by scaling these simulated clear- and cloudy-sky forcings with estimates of anthropogenic andtau;a and satellite-retrieved Ndĝ€"andtau;a regression slopes, respectively, yields a global, annual-mean aerosol direct effect estimate of andminus;0.4andplusmn;0.2 Wmandminus;2 and a cloudy-sky (aerosol indirect effect) estimate of andminus;0.7andplusmn;0.5 Wmandminus;2, with a total estimate of andminus;1.2andplusmn;0. 4 Wmandminus;2.

In Part I of this work a 3-D cloud tracking algorithm and phase space of center of gravity altitude versus cloud liquid water mass (CvM space) were introduced and described in detail. We showed how new physical insight can be gained by following cloud trajectories in the CvM space. Here this approach is used to investigate aerosol effects on cloud fields of warm cumuli. We show a clear effect of the aerosol loading on the shape and size of CvM clusters. We also find fundamental differences in the CvM space between simulations using bin versus bulk microphysical schemes, with the bin scheme precipitation expressing much higher sensitivity to changes in aerosol concentrations. Using the bin microphysical scheme, we find that the increase in cloud center of gravity altitude with increase in aerosol concentrations occurs for a wide range of cloud sizes. This is attributed to reduced sedimentation, increased buoyancy and vertical velocities, and increased environmental instability, all of which are tightly coupled to inhibition of precipitation processes and subsequent feedbacks of clouds on their environment. Many of the physical processes shown here are consistent with processes typically associated with cloud invigoration.

Clouds and aerosols continue to contribute the largest uncertainty to estimates and interpretations of the Earth's changing energy budget. This chapter focuses on process understanding and considers observations, theory and models to assess how clouds and aerosols contribute and respond to climate change. The following conclusions are drawn.

Aerosol indirect effects continue to constitute one of the most important uncertainties for anthropogenic climate perturbations. Within the international AEROCOM initiative, the representation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in ten different general circulation models (GCMs) is evaluated using three satellite datasets. The focus is on stratiform liquid water clouds since most GCMs do not include ice nucleation effects, and none of the models explicitly parameterizes aerosol effects on convective clouds. We compute statistical relationships between aerosol optical depth (τa) and various cloud and radiation quantities in a manner that is consistent between the models and the satellite data. It is found that the model-simulated influence of aerosols on cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) compares relatively well to the satellite data at least over the ocean. The relationship between τa and liquid water path is simulated much too strongly by the models. It is shown that this is partly related to the representation of the second aerosol indirect effect in terms of autoconversion. A positive relationship between total cloud fraction (fcld) and τa as found in the satellite data is simulated by the majority of the models, albeit less strongly than that in the satellite data in most of them. In a discussion of the hypotheses proposed in the literature to explain the satellite-derived strong fcld – τa relationship, our results indicate that none can be identified as unique explanation. Relationships similar to the ones found in satellite data between τa and cloud top temperature or outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) are simulated by only a few GCMs. The GCMs that simulate a negative OLR – τa relationship show a strong positive correlation between τa and fcld. The short-wave total aerosol radiative forcing as simulated by the GCMs is strongly influenced by the simulated anthropogenic fraction of τa, and parameterisation assumptions such as a lower bound on Nd. Nevertheless, the strengths of the statistical relationships are good predictors for the aerosol forcings in the models. An estimate of the total short-wave aerosol forcing inferred from the combination of these predictors for the modelled forcings with the satellite-derived statistical relationships yields a global annual mean value of −1.5±0.5 Wm−2. An alternative estimate obtained by scaling the simulated clear- and cloudy-sky forcings with estimates of anthropogenic τa and satellite-retrieved Nd – τa regression slopes, respectively, yields a global annual mean clear-sky (aerosol direct effect) estimate of −0.4±0.2 Wm−2 and a cloudy-sky (aerosol indirect effect) estimate of −0.7±0.5 Wm−2, with a total estimate of −1.2±0.4 Wm−2.

Aerosol indirect effects continue to constitute one of the most important uncertainties for anthropogenic climate perturbations. Within the international AEROCOM initiative, the representation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in ten different general circulation models (GCMs) is evaluated using three satellite datasets. The focus is on stratiform liquid water clouds since most GCMs do not include ice nucleation effects, and none of the model explicitly parameterises aerosol effects on convective clouds. We compute statistical relationships between aerosol optical depth (τa) and various cloud and radiation quantities in a manner that is consistent between the models and the satellite data. It is found that the model-simulated influence of aerosols on cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) compares relatively well to the satellite data at least over the ocean. The relationship between τa and liquid water path is simulated much too strongly by the models. This suggests that the implementation of the second aerosol indirect effect mainly in terms of an autoconversion parameterisation has to be revisited in the GCMs. A positive relationship between total cloud fraction (fcld) and τa as found in the satellite data is simulated by the majority of the models, albeit less strongly than that in the satellite data in most of them. In a discussion of the hypotheses proposed in the literature to explain the satellite-derived strong fcld–τa relationship, our results indicate that none can be identified as a unique explanation. Relationships similar to the ones found in satellite data between τa and cloud top temperature or outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) are simulated by only a few GCMs. The GCMs that simulate a negative OLR–τa relationship show a strong positive correlation between τa and fcld. The short-wave total aerosol radiative forcing as simulated by the GCMs is strongly influenced by the simulated anthropogenic fraction of τa, and parameterisation assumptions such as a lower bound on Nd. Nevertheless, the strengths of the statistical relationships are good predictors for the aerosol forcings in the models. An estimate of the total short-wave aerosol forcing inferred from the combination of these predictors for the modelled forcings with the satellite-derived statistical relationships yields a global annual mean value of −1.5±0.5 Wm−2. In an alternative approach, the radiative flux perturbation due to anthropogenic aerosols can be broken down into a component over the cloud-free portion of the globe (approximately the aerosol direct effect) and a component over the cloudy portion of the globe (approximately the aerosol indirect effect). An estimate obtained by scaling these simulated clear- and cloudy-sky forcings with estimates of anthropogenic τa and satellite-retrieved Nd–τa regression slopes, respectively, yields a global, annual-mean aerosol direct effect estimate of −0.4±0.2 Wm−2 and a cloudy-sky (aerosol indirect effect) estimate of −0.7±0.5 Wm−2, with a total estimate of −1.2±0.4 Wm−2.