Ocean Emission Effects on Aerosol-Cloud Interactions: Insights from Two Case Studies

Two case studies are discussed that evaluate the effect of ocean emissions on aerosol-cloud interactions. A review of the first case study from the eastern Pacific Ocean shows that simultaneous aircraft and space-borne observations are valuable in detecting links between ocean biota emissions and ma...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in Meteorology
Main Authors: Armin Sorooshian, Hanh T. Duong
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Limited 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/301395
https://doaj.org/article/11a5d92165ca41b88cc07fa8a1564143
Description
Summary:Two case studies are discussed that evaluate the effect of ocean emissions on aerosol-cloud interactions. A review of the first case study from the eastern Pacific Ocean shows that simultaneous aircraft and space-borne observations are valuable in detecting links between ocean biota emissions and marine aerosols, but that the effect of the former on cloud microphysics is less clear owing to interference from background anthropogenic pollution and the difficulty with field experiments in obtaining a wide range of aerosol conditions to robustly quantify ocean effects on aerosol-cloud interactions. To address these limitations, a second case was investigated using remote sensing data over the less polluted Southern Ocean region. The results indicate that cloud drop size is reduced more for a fixed increase in aerosol particles during periods of higher ocean chlorophyll A. Potential biases in the results owing to statistical issues in the data analysis are discussed.