Clouds, Aerosols, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer: An Arm Mobile Facility Deployment

• Published in: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
• Main Authors: Wood, Robert, Wyant, Matthew, Bretherton, Christopher S., Remillard, Jasmine, Kollias, Pavlos, Fletcher, Jennifer, Stemmler, Jayson, de Szoeke, Simon P., Yuter, Sandra E., Miller, Matthew, Mechem, David B., Tselioudis, George, Chiu, J. Christine, Mann, Julian A. L., O'Connor, Ewan J., Hogan, Robin J., Dong, Xiquan, Miller, Mark, Ghate, Virendra, Jefferson, Anne, Min, Qilong, Minnis, Patrick, Palikonda, Rabindra, Albrecht, Bruce, Luke, Ed, Hannay, Cecile, Lin, Yanluan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Meteorological Society 2016
• Subjects: Atmosphere-ocean interaction; Hadley circulation; La Nina; Meridional overturning circulation; Decadal variability; Spring season; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1808/22154; https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00180.1

© Copyright 2015 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS’s permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a web site or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (https://www.ametsoc.org/) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or [e-mail]. The Clouds, Aerosol, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer (CAP-MBL) deployment at Graciosa Island in the Azores generated a 21-month (April 2009–December 2010) comprehensive dataset documenting clouds, aerosols, and precipitation using the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF). The scientific aim of the deployment is to gain improved understanding of the interactions of clouds, aerosols, and precipitation in the marine boundary layer. Graciosa Island straddles the boundary between the subtropics and midlatitudes in the northeast Atlantic Ocean and consequently experiences a great diversity of meteorological and cloudiness conditions. Low clouds are the dominant cloud type, with stratocumulus and cumulus occurring regularly. Approximately half of all clouds contained precipitation detectable as radar echoes below the cloud base. Radar and satellite observations show that clouds with tops from 1 to 11 km contribute more or less equally to surface-measured precipitation at Graciosa. A wide range of aerosol conditions was sampled ...