IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v9y2018i1d10.1038_s41467-018-05028-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Observational constraint on cloud susceptibility weakened by aerosol retrieval limitations

Author

Listed:
  • Po-Lun Ma

    (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

  • Philip J. Rasch

    (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

  • Hélène Chepfer

    (Sorbonne Université
    Route de Saclay)

  • David M. Winker

    (NASA Langley Research Center, MS/475)

  • Steven J. Ghan

    (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Abstract

Aerosol-cloud interactions remain a major uncertainty in climate research. Studies have indicated that model estimates of cloud susceptibility to aerosols frequently exceed satellite estimates, motivating model reformulations to increase agreement. Here we show that conventional ways of using satellite information to estimate susceptibility can serve as only a weak constraint on models because the estimation is sensitive to errors in the retrieval procedures. Using instrument simulators to investigate differences between model and satellite estimates of susceptibilities, we find that low aerosol loading conditions are not well characterized by satellites, but model clouds are sensitive to aerosol perturbations in these conditions. We quantify the observational requirements needed to constrain models, and find that the nighttime lidar measurements of aerosols provide a better characterization of tenuous aerosols. We conclude that observational uncertainties and limitations need to be accounted for when assessing the role of aerosols in the climate system.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-05028-4
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05028-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05028-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-018-05028-4?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. 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.

    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:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-05028-4. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.