Aerosol invigoration of atmospheric convection through increases in humidity
Name
2002.06056.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
1.83 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
4d351ed8f482feb0ecee0a4ef1ef4048
Author(s)
Abbott, Tristan H
Cronin, Timothy Wallace
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Science
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
© 2021 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. Cloud-aerosol interactions remain a major obstacle to understanding climate and severe weather. Observations suggest that aerosols enhance tropical thunderstorm activity; past research, motivated by the importance of understanding aerosol impacts on clouds, has proposed several mechanisms that could explain that observed link. We find that high-resolution atmospheric simulations can reproduce the observed link between aerosols and convection. However, we also show that previously proposed mechanisms are unable to explain the invigoration. Examining underlying processes reveals that, in our simulations, high aerosol concentrations increase environmental humidity by producing clouds that mix more condensed water into the surrounding air. In turn, higher humidity favors large-scale ascent and stronger convection. Our results provide a physical reason to expect invigorated thunderstorms in high-aerosol regions of the tropics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.ABC5181
