Analysis of Near-Cloud Changes in Atmospheric Aerosols Using Satellite Observations and Global Model Simulations
| dc.contributor.author | Várnai, Tamás | |
| dc.contributor.author | Marshak, Alexander | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-04-08T16:51:04Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-04-08T16:51:04Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021-03-17 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This paper examines cloud-related variations of atmospheric aerosols that occur in partly cloudy regions containing low-altitude clouds. The goal is to better understand aerosol behaviors and to help better represent the radiative effects of aerosols on climate. For this, the paper presents a statistical analysis of a multi-month global dataset that combines data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) satellite instruments with data from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) global reanalysis. Among other findings, the results reveal that near-cloud enhancements in lidar backscatter (closely related to aerosol optical depth) are larger (1) over land than ocean by 35%, (2) near optically thicker clouds by substantial amounts, (3) for sea salt than for other aerosol types, with the difference from dust reaching 50%. Finally, the study found that mean lidar backscatter is higher near clouds not because of large-scale variations in meteorological conditions, but because of local processes associated with individual clouds. The results help improve our understanding of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions and our ability to represent them in climate models and other atmospheric models | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | We are grateful to Ralph Kahn and to Lazaros Oreopoulos for helpful questions and suggestions. This research was funded by the NASA Radiation Sciences Program managed by Hal Maring and by the NASA CALIPSO project supervised by David Considine | en_US |
| dc.description.uri | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/6/1151 | en_US |
| dc.format.extent | 13 pages | en_US |
| dc.genre | journal articles | en_US |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.13016/m2mqsh-cdkm | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Várnai, Tamás; Marshak, Alexander. 2021. "Analysis of Near-Cloud Changes in Atmospheric Aerosols Using Satellite Observations and Global Model Simulations" Remote Sens. 13, no. 6: 1151. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13061151 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13061151 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11603/21299 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | MDPI | en_US |
| dc.relation.isAvailableAt | The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Faculty Collection | |
| dc.rights | This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author. | |
| dc.rights | Public Domain Mark 1.0 | * |
| dc.rights | This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law. | |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ | * |
| dc.title | Analysis of Near-Cloud Changes in Atmospheric Aerosols Using Satellite Observations and Global Model Simulations | en_US |
| dc.type | Text | en_US |