Climate processes

Abstract:

<jats:p>Abstract. The atmospheric energy budget is analysed in numerical simulations of tropical cloud systems. This is done in order to better understand the physical processes behind aerosol effects on the atmospheric energy budget. The simulations include both shallow convective clouds and deep convective tropical clouds over the Atlantic Ocean. Two different sets of simulations, at different dates (10–12/8/2016 and 16–18/8/2016), are being simulated with different dominant cloud modes (shallow or deep). For each case, the cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNC) is varied as a proxy for changes in aerosol concentrations. It is shown that the total column atmospheric radiative cooling is substantially reduced with CDNC in the deep-cloud dominated case (by ~ 10.0 W/m2), while a much smaller reduction (~ 1.6 W/m2) is shown in the shallow-cloud dominated case. This trend is caused by an increase in the ice and water vapor content at the upper troposphere that leads to a reduced outgoing longwave radiation. A decrease in sensible heat flux (driven by increase in the near surface air temperature) reduces the warming by ~ 1.4 W/m2 in both cases. It is also shown that the cloud fraction response behaves in opposite ways to an increase in CDNC, showing an increase in the deep-cloud dominated case and a decrease in the shallow-cloud dominated case. This demonstrates that under different environmental conditions the response to aerosol perturbation could be different. </jats:p>