IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-34948-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aerosol effects on clouds are concealed by natural cloud heterogeneity and satellite retrieval errors

Author

Listed:
  • Antti Arola

    (Finnish Meteorological Institute)

  • Antti Lipponen

    (Finnish Meteorological Institute)

  • Pekka Kolmonen

    (Finnish Meteorological Institute)

  • Timo H. Virtanen

    (Finnish Meteorological Institute)

  • Nicolas Bellouin

    (University of Reading)

  • Daniel P. Grosvenor

    (University of Leeds)

  • Edward Gryspeerdt

    (Imperial College London)

  • Johannes Quaas

    (Leipzig University)

  • Harri Kokkola

    (Finnish Meteorological Institute)

Abstract

One major source of uncertainty in the cloud-mediated aerosol forcing arises from the magnitude of the cloud liquid water path (LWP) adjustment to aerosol-cloud interactions, which is poorly constrained by observations. Many of the recent satellite-based studies have observed a decreasing LWP as a function of cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) as the dominating behavior. Estimating the LWP response to the CDNC changes is a complex task since various confounding factors need to be isolated. However, an important aspect has not been sufficiently considered: the propagation of natural spatial variability and errors in satellite retrievals of cloud optical depth and cloud effective radius to estimates of CDNC and LWP. Here we use satellite and simulated measurements to demonstrate that, because of this propagation, even a positive LWP adjustment is likely to be misinterpreted as negative. This biasing effect therefore leads to an underestimate of the aerosol-cloud-climate cooling and must be properly considered in future studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Antti Arola & Antti Lipponen & Pekka Kolmonen & Timo H. Virtanen & Nicolas Bellouin & Daniel P. Grosvenor & Edward Gryspeerdt & Johannes Quaas & Harri Kokkola, 2022. "Aerosol effects on clouds are concealed by natural cloud heterogeneity and satellite retrieval errors," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-34948-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34948-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34948-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-34948-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Florent F. Malavelle & Jim M. Haywood & Andy Jones & Andrew Gettelman & Lieven Clarisse & Sophie Bauduin & Richard P. Allan & Inger Helene H. Karset & Jón Egill Kristjánsson & Lazaros Oreopoulos & Nay, 2017. "Erratum: Strong constraints on aerosol–cloud interactions from volcanic eruptions," Nature, Nature, vol. 551(7679), pages 256-256, November.
    2. Velle Toll & Matthew Christensen & Johannes Quaas & Nicolas Bellouin, 2019. "Weak average liquid-cloud-water response to anthropogenic aerosols," Nature, Nature, vol. 572(7767), pages 51-55, August.
    3. Florent F. Malavelle & Jim M. Haywood & Andy Jones & Andrew Gettelman & Lieven Clarisse & Sophie Bauduin & Richard P. Allan & Inger Helene H. Karset & Jón Egill Kristjánsson & Lazaros Oreopoulos & Nay, 2017. "Strong constraints on aerosol–cloud interactions from volcanic eruptions," Nature, Nature, vol. 546(7659), pages 485-491, June.
    4. Po-Lun Ma & Philip J. Rasch & Hélène Chepfer & David M. Winker & Steven J. Ghan, 2018. "Observational constraint on cloud susceptibility weakened by aerosol retrieval limitations," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Andrew S. Ackerman & Michael P. Kirkpatrick & David E. Stevens & Owen B. Toon, 2004. "The impact of humidity above stratiform clouds on indirect aerosol climate forcing," Nature, Nature, vol. 432(7020), pages 1014-1017, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sara M. Blichner & Taina Yli-Juuti & Tero Mielonen & Christopher Pöhlker & Eemeli Holopainen & Liine Heikkinen & Claudia Mohr & Paulo Artaxo & Samara Carbone & Bruno Backes Meller & Cléo Quaresma Dias, 2024. "Process-evaluation of forest aerosol-cloud-climate feedback shows clear evidence from observations and large uncertainty in models," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael S. Diamond & Kelly Wanser & Olivier Boucher, 2023. "“Cooling credits” are not a viable climate solution," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(7), pages 1-9, July.
    2. Guo, Changqiang & Hu, Hao & Wang, Shaowen & Rodriguez, Luis F. & Ting, K.C. & Lin, Tao, 2022. "Multiperiod stochastic programming for biomass supply chain design under spatiotemporal variability of feedstock supply," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 378-393.
    3. Robert Wood & Thomas Ackerman, 2013. "Defining success and limits of field experiments to test geoengineering by marine cloud brightening," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 459-472, December.
    4. Alan Robock & Douglas MacMartin & Riley Duren & Matthew Christensen, 2013. "Studying geoengineering with natural and anthropogenic analogs," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 445-458, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-34948-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.