Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds
Many soil-derived particles dominated by insoluble material, including Saharan dusts, are known to act as ice nuclei. If, however, dust particles can compete with other atmospheric particle types to form liquid cloud droplets, they have a greater potential to change climate through indirect effects...
Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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American Geophysical Union
2009
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Online Access: | http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-002-745 https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035846 |
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_15501 2023-09-05T13:21:30+02:00 Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds Twohy, Cynthia (author) Kreidenweis, Sonia (author) Eidhammer, Trude (author) Browell, Edward (author) Heymsfield, Andrew (author) Bansemer, Aaron (author) Anderson, Bruce (author) Chen, Gao (author) Ismail, Syed (author) DeMott, Paul (author) Van Den Heever, Susan (author) 2009-01-13 application/pdf http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-002-745 https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035846 en eng American Geophysical Union Geophysical Research Letters http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-002-745 doi:10.1029/2008GL035846 ark:/85065/d7p55pjd An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright 2009 American Geophysical Union. Dust CCN Clouds Text article 2009 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035846 2023-08-14T18:42:07Z Many soil-derived particles dominated by insoluble material, including Saharan dusts, are known to act as ice nuclei. If, however, dust particles can compete with other atmospheric particle types to form liquid cloud droplets, they have a greater potential to change climate through indirect effects on cloud radiative properties and to affect the hydrological cycle through precipitation changes. By directly collecting and analyzing the residual nuclei of small cloud droplets, we demonstrate that Saharan dust particles do commonly act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the eastern North Atlantic. Droplet activation calculations support the measurements by showing that due to its slightly hygroscopic nature, even submicron dust can be important as CCN. Given the dual nature of Saharan dust particles as CCN and ice nuclei, this infusion of dust is expected to impact not only droplet size and albedo in small clouds, but ice formation in deep convective clouds. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Geophysical Research Letters 36 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
topic |
Dust CCN Clouds |
spellingShingle |
Dust CCN Clouds Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds |
topic_facet |
Dust CCN Clouds |
description |
Many soil-derived particles dominated by insoluble material, including Saharan dusts, are known to act as ice nuclei. If, however, dust particles can compete with other atmospheric particle types to form liquid cloud droplets, they have a greater potential to change climate through indirect effects on cloud radiative properties and to affect the hydrological cycle through precipitation changes. By directly collecting and analyzing the residual nuclei of small cloud droplets, we demonstrate that Saharan dust particles do commonly act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the eastern North Atlantic. Droplet activation calculations support the measurements by showing that due to its slightly hygroscopic nature, even submicron dust can be important as CCN. Given the dual nature of Saharan dust particles as CCN and ice nuclei, this infusion of dust is expected to impact not only droplet size and albedo in small clouds, but ice formation in deep convective clouds. |
author2 |
Twohy, Cynthia (author) Kreidenweis, Sonia (author) Eidhammer, Trude (author) Browell, Edward (author) Heymsfield, Andrew (author) Bansemer, Aaron (author) Anderson, Bruce (author) Chen, Gao (author) Ismail, Syed (author) DeMott, Paul (author) Van Den Heever, Susan (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds |
title_short |
Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds |
title_full |
Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds |
title_fullStr |
Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds |
title_full_unstemmed |
Saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern Atlantic clouds |
title_sort |
saharan dust particles nucleate droplets in eastern atlantic clouds |
publisher |
American Geophysical Union |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-002-745 https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035846 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
Geophysical Research Letters http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-002-745 doi:10.1029/2008GL035846 ark:/85065/d7p55pjd |
op_rights |
An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright 2009 American Geophysical Union. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035846 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
36 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1776202108197928960 |