Variation of CCN and potential CDNC in the eastern Mediterranean

This peer reviewed conference proceeding paper by Neroladaki et al has been orally presented at the COMECAP 2021 Conference in Greece. This study investigates the aerosol-CCN-cloud droplet link at the Finokalia atmospheric observatory from February to December 2014. A comprehensive dataset of the observed submicron aerosol size distribution, chemical composition and derived CCN concentrations is being processed with a state-of-the-art droplet parameterization to calculate the potential cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) and maximum cloud supersaturation. Bulk hygroscopicity is calculated from the mixture of salts predicted by ISORROPIA-II thermodynamic model using the observed particle composition. The calculated CCN overestimate the available observations by 5-20% for most supersaturations between 0.2 and 1.0%. This error propagates to CDNC predictions. Both calculated CCN and CDNC maximize in summer, when the maximum supersaturation needed for cloud droplet to form is minimum.