The mesoscale self-organization of trade-cumulus cloud fields is a major cloud-climate uncertainty. Cold pools, i.e. pockets of cold, dense air resulting from rain evaporation, are a key mechanism in shaping these dynamics and are controlled by the large-scale forcing. We study the microphysical sensitivity of cloud-field self-organization through cold pools by varying cloud-droplet number concentration Nc from 20 to 1000 /cm3 in large-eddy simulations on large 154×154 km2-domains. We find that cold pools exhibit two distinct regimes of mesoscale self-organization. In very low-Nc conditions, cold pools transition from a stage where they are small and randomly distributed to forming large, long-lived structures that perpetuate due to the collisions of cold pools at their fronts. Under high-Nc conditions, cold pools display strongly intermittent behaviour and interact with clouds through small, short-lived structures. While Nc thus influences the number of cold pools and, in turn, mesoscale organization, cloud depth, and cloud albedo, we find its effect on cloud cover to be minimal. Comparing the microphysical sensitivity of cold-pool-mediated mesoscale dynamics to the external, large-scale forcing shows that Nc is as important as horizontal wind and large-scale subsidence for trade-cumulus albedo. Our results highlight that cold pools mediate adjustments of trade-cumulus cloud fields to changes in Nc. Such mesoscale adjustments need to be considered if we are to better constrain the effective aerosol forcing and cloud feedback in the trade-wind regime.@en

Shallow trade cumuli over subtropical oceans are a persistent source of uncertainty in climate projections. Mesoscale organization of trade cumulus clouds has been shown to influence their cloud radiative effect (CRE) through cloud cover. We investigate whether organization can explain CRE variability independently of cloud-cover variability. By analyzing satellite observations and high-resolution simulations, we show that more clustered cloud fields feature geometrically thicker clouds with larger domain-averaged liquid water paths, smaller cloud droplets, and consequently larger cloud optical depths. The relationships between these variables are shaped by the mixture of deep cloud cores and shallower interstitial clouds or anvils that characterize cloud organization. Eliminating cloud-cover effects, more clustered clouds reflect up to 20 W/m2 more instantaneous shortwave radiation back to space.@en

Aerosol–cloud interactions modulate the role of clouds in Earth's climate. We derive, evaluate, and apply a simple model to understand aerosol-mediated cloud water adjustments in stratocumulus based on only two prognostic equations for the integrated cloud water L and droplet number concentration N. The model is solved numerically and analytically and agrees well with documented large-eddy-simulation data and satellite retrievals. A tight relationship between adjustments at low and high N is found, revealing the influence of non-precipitation processes (primarily entrainment) on adjustments in precipitating clouds. Furthermore, it is shown that adjustments in non-precipitating clouds tend to be positively biased by external L or N perturbations, while adjustments in precipitating clouds are barely susceptible. By deliberately reducing the complexity of the underlying system, this study constitutes a way forward to facilitate process-level understanding of cloud water adjustments.@en

Recent observations of the trade-wind regions highlight the covariability between cold-pool properties and mesoscale cloud organization. Given the covariability of organization with cloud cover and albedo, this suggests a potential impact of cold pools on the cloud radiative effect (CRE). To explore this, we use an ensemble of 103 large-domain, high-resolution, large-eddy simulations and investigate how the variability in cold pools is determined by large-scale external cloud-controlling factors (CCFs) and shaped by processes within the mesoscale. It is demonstrated that the size and frequency of occurrence of cold pools are strongly influenced by the near-surface horizontal wind speed and large-scale subsidence. The temporal evolution of cold pools is strongly correlated with the diurnality in radiation. Even without external variability, we find a strong intermittent behaviour in the evolution of cold pools, governed by a complex interplay between cold pools and clouds which expresses itself in the form of shallow squall lines. These squall lines result from precipitating downdrafts, cold pool outflows and the resulting gust fronts, reinforcing parent clouds. Cold pools influence the CRE of trade cumuli, but only when they exist during the day. This emphasizes the importance of the synchronization between cold-pool events and the diurnal cycle of insolation for the dependence of the CRE on cold pools.@en

Recent observations of the trades highlight the covariability between cold pool (CP) properties and cloud cover, suggesting a potential impact of CPs on the cloud radiative effect (CRE). To explore this, we use an ensemble of 103 large-domain, high-resolution, large-eddy simulations (Cloud Botany). We investigate the extent to which the variability in CPs is driven by external conditions or convective self-organization. Our findings show that CPs are notably controlled by large-scale conditions, specifically (horizontal) wind speed and subsidence. The temporal evolution of CPs is tightly related to the diurnality in radiation. To understand the extent to which CPs vary with self-organization, we switch off the diurnality in radiation. Despite the absence of the diurnal cycle, CP time series still exhibit fluctuations. These fluctuations result from the recharge-discharge of thermodynamic and dynamic properties of the sub-cloud layer owing to CP-cloud interactions. Our results demonstrate that circulations induced by CPs reinforce the parent clouds, resulting in deepening and scale growth, followed by mesoscale arcs enclosing clear-sky areas. Finally, we show that CPs influence CRE, but only when they exist during the day. Our findings emphasize the importance of the relationship between the timescales of self-organization and the diurnal cycle of external conditions, greatly influencing the CRE dependency on self-organizing CPs.@en

We explore the cloud system evolution of non-precipitating marine stratocumuli with a focus on the impacts of the diurnal cycle and free-tropospheric (FT) humidity based on an ensemble of 244 large-eddy simulations generated by perturbing initial thermodynamic profiles and aerosol conditions. Cases are categorized based on their degree of decoupling and the cloud liquid water path (LWPc, based on model columns with cloud optical depths greater than one). A budget analysis method is proposed to analyze the evolution of cloud water in both coupled and decoupled boundary layers. More coupled clouds start with a relatively low LWPc and cloud fraction (fc) but experience the least decrease in LWPc and fc during the daytime. More decoupled clouds undergo greater daytime reduction in LWPc and fc, especially those with higher LWPc at sunrise because they suffer from faster weakening of net radiative cooling. During the nighttime, a positive correlation between FT humidity and the LWPc emerges, consistent with higher FT humidity reducing both radiative cooling and the humidity jump, both of which reduce entrainment and increase LWPc. The LWPc is more likely to decrease during the nighttime for a larger LWPc and greater inversion base height (zi), conditions under which entrainment dominates as turbulence develops. In the morning, the rate of the LWPc reduction depends on the LWPc at sunrise, zi, and the degree of decoupling, with distinct contributions from subsidence and radiation.@en

Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is the deliberate injection of aerosol particles into shallow marine clouds to increase their reflection of solar radiation and reduce the amount of energy absorbed by the climate system. From the physical science perspective, the consensus of a broad international group of scientists is that the viability of MCB will ultimately depend on whether observations and models can robustly assess the scale-up of local-to-global brightening in today's climate and identify strategies that will ensure an equitable geographical distribution of the benefits and risks associated with projected regional changes in temperature and precipitation. To address the physical science knowledge gaps required to assess the societal implications of MCB, we propose a substantial and targeted program of research-field and laboratory experiments, monitoring, and numerical modeling across a range of scales.

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Recent observations of the trade-wind regions highlight the covariability between cold-pool properties and mesoscale cloud organization. Given the covariability of organization with cloud cover and albedo, this suggests a potential impact of cold pools on the cloud radiative effect (CRE). To explore this, we use an ensemble of 103 large-domain, high-resolution, large-eddy simulations and investigate how the variability in cold pools is determined by large-scale external cloud-controlling factors and shaped by processes within the mesoscale. It is demonstrated that the size and frequency of occurrence of cold pools are strongly influenced by the near-surface horizontal wind speed and large-scale subsidence. The temporal evolution of cold pools is strongly correlated with the diurnality in radiation. Even without external variability, we find a strong intermittent behavior in the evolution of cold pools, governed by a complex interplay between cold pools and clouds which expresses itself in the form of shallow squall lines. These squall lines result from precipitating downdrafts, cold pool outflows and the resulting gust fronts, reinforcing parent clouds. Cold pools influence the CRE of trade cumuli, but only when they exist during the day. This emphasizes the importance of the synchronization between cold-pool events and the diurnal cycle of insolation for the dependence of the CRE on cold pools.@en

Aerosol-cloud interactions refer to the group of atmospheric processes by which aerosols influence cloud properties, and sometimes also processes by which clouds affect aerosols. The effect of these atmospheric processes on Earth’s radiative balance is potentially large, but uncertain. When combined with uncertainties in aerosol concentrations that result from emissions and aerosol processes, the uncertainty in aerosol-cloud interactions dominates the overall uncertainty in our knowledge of radiative forcing of Earth’s climate. Aerosols affect clouds primarily by changing the number of cloud condensation and ice nuclei, “indirect effects,” and sometimes also the temperature of the cloud, “semi-direct effects.” Changes in cloud processes in response to aerosol-cloud interactions may cause significant adjustments to cloud macrophysical properties such as coverage and condensate amount. Aerosol-cloud interaction research focuses on understanding the atmospheric processes at work, mainly by analyzing observation data, performing laboratory experiments, and building models to simulate how aerosols influence clouds. In this review, we outline the relevant atmospheric science and highlight some promising techniques that have been applied recently to better understand aerosol-cloud interactions and their implications for radiative balance, such as Gaussian process emulation. This chapter is intended to provide background to subsequent chapters in this series of monographs and as an introduction for graduate students to current research in the field of aerosol-cloud interactions.

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Small shallow cumulus clouds (less-than 1 km) over the tropical oceans appear to possess the ability to self-organize into mesoscale (10–100 km) patterns. To better understand the processes leading to such self-organized convection, we present Cloud Botany, an ensemble of 103 large-eddy simulations on domains of 150 km, produced by the Dutch Atmospheric Large Eddy Simulation model on supercomputer Fugaku. Each simulation is run in an idealized, fixed, larger-scale environment, controlled by six free parameters. We vary these over characteristic ranges for the winter trades, including parameter combinations observed during the EUREC4A (Elucidating the role of clouds–circulation coupling in climate) field campaign. In contrast to simulation setups striving for maximum realism, Cloud Botany provides a platform for studying idealized, and therefore more clearly interpretable causal relationships between conditions in the larger-scale environment and patterns in mesoscale, self-organized shallow convection. We find that any simulation that supports cumulus clouds eventually develops mesoscale patterns in their cloud fields. We also find a rich variety in these patterns as our control parameters change, including cold pools lined by cloudy arcs, bands of cross-wind clouds and aggregated patches, sometimes topped by thin anvils. Many of these features are similar to cloud patterns found in nature. The published data set consists of raw simulation output on full 3D grids and 2D cross-sections, as well as post-processed quantities aggregated over the vertical (2D), horizontal (1D) and all spatial dimensions (time-series). The data set is directly accessible from Python through the use of the EUREC4A intake catalog.@en

Condensation in cumulus clouds plays a key role in structuring the mean, nonprecipitating trade wind boundary layer. Here, we summarize how this role also explains the spontaneous growth of mesoscale [.O(10) km] fluctuations in clouds and moisture around the mean state in a minimal-physics, large-eddy simulation of the undisturbed period during BOMEX on a large [O(100) km] domain. Small, spatial anomalies in condensation in cumulus clouds, which form on top of small moisture fluctuations, power circulations that transport moisture, but not heat, from dry to moist regions, and thus reinforce the condensation anomaly. We frame this positive feedback as a linear instability in mesoscale moisture fluctuations, whose time scale depends only on (i) a vertical velocity scale and (ii) the mean environment's vertical structure. In our minimal-physics setting, we show both ingredients are provided by the shallow cumulus convection itself: it is intrinsically unstable to length scale growth. The upshot is that energy released by clouds at kilometer scales may play a more profound and direct role in shaping the mesoscale trade wind environment than is generally appreciated, motivating further research into the mechanism's relevance.

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Numerical simulations of the tropical mesoscales often exhibit a self-reinforcing feedback between cumulus convection and shallow circulations, which leads to the self-aggregation of clouds into large clusters. We investigate whether this basic feedback can be adequately captured by large-eddy simulations (LESs). To do so, we simulate the non-precipitating, cumulus-topped boundary layer of the canonical “BOMEX” case over a range of numerical settings in two models. Since the energetic convective scales underpinning the self-aggregation are only slightly larger than typical LES grid spacings, aggregation timescales do not converge even at rather high resolutions (<100 m). Therefore, high resolutions or improved sub-filter scale models may be required to faithfully represent certain forms of trade-wind mesoscale cloud patterns and self-aggregating deep convection in large-eddy and cloud-resolving models, and to understand their significance relative to other processes that organize the tropical mesoscales.

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Stratocumulus occur in closed- or open-cell states, which tend to be associated with high or low cloud cover and the absence or presence of precipitation, respectively. Thus, the transition between these states has substantial implications for the role of this cloud type in Earth’s radiation budget. In this study, we analyze transitions between these states using an ensemble of 127 large-eddy simulations, covering a wide range of conditions. Our analysis is focused on the behavior of these clouds in a cloud fraction (f_c) scene albedo (A) phase space, which has been shown in previous studies to be a useful framework for interpreting system behavior. For the transition from closed to open cells, we find that precipitation creates narrower clouds and scavenges cloud droplets for all f_c. However, precipitation decreases the cloud depth for f_c > 0.8 only, causing a rapid decrease in A. For f_c < 0.8, the cloud depth actually increases due to mesoscale organization of the cloud field. As the cloud deepening balances the effects of cloud droplet scavenging in terms of influence on A, changes in A are determined by the decreasing f_c only, causing a linear decrease in A for f_c < 0.8. For the transition from open to closed cells, we find that longwave radiative cooling drives the cloud development, with cloud widening dominating for f_c < 0.5. For f_c > 0.5, clouds begin to deepen gradually due to the decreasing efficiency of lateral expansion. The smooth switch between cloud widening and deepening leads to a more gentle change in A compared to the transitions under precipitating conditions.@en

Data-driven quantification and parameterization of cloud physics in general, and of aerosol-cloud interactions in particular, rely on input data from observations or detailed simulations. These data sources have complementary limitations in terms of their spatial and temporal coverage and resolution; simulation data has the advantage of readily providing causality but cannot represent the full process complexity. In order to base data-driven approaches on comprehensive information, we therefore need ways to integrate different data sources.  We discuss how the classical statistical technique of Gaussian-process emulation can be combined with specifically initialized ensembles of detailed cloud simulations (large-eddy simulations, LES) to provide a framework for evaluating data-driven descriptions of cloud characteristics and processes across different data sources. We specifically illustrate this approach for integrating LES and satellite data of aerosol-cloud interactions in subtropical stratocumulus cloud decks. We furthermore explore the extension of our framework to ground-based observations of Arctic mixed-phase clouds.@en

Mixed-phase clouds play an important role in the Arctic climate system. However, accurate climate projections are seriously hampered due to uncertainties in representing these clouds. Understanding their dynamical behavior based on first principles is a challenging task which requires the disentanglement of mixed-phase micro-physical complexities and a multitude multitude of cloud--surface--boundary layer interactions. Here we take an alternative route towards describing the cloud system and adopt a dynamical-systems perspective. Such an approach has already been successfully applied to describe and model a wide range of complex systems. This research focuses on data obtained at the permanent observatory in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard. We present our results concerning the analysis of distinct signatures of two preferred states. Further, preliminary results on the interdependence of the key variables and their temporal evolution are presented.@en

Shallow cumuli are the most frequent types of clouds over the subtropical oceans where they occur in several shapes and patterns. These types of clouds potentially play a major role in regulating the radiative budget of the Earth system. An important question is to what extent cloud patterns alter under climate change and how this will feedback onto a rising of temperature. In this study, we aim at finding how cloud feedback depends on the macro-physical characteristics of cloud fields. To this end, we investigate the relationship between different organization metrics derived from shallow cloud fields and the net cloud radiative effect of the associated fields.@en

The aerosol impact on liquid water path (LWP) is a key uncertainty in the overall climate impact of aerosol. However, despite a significant effort in this area, the size of the effect remains poorly constrained, and even the sign is unclear. Recent studies have shown that the relationship between droplet number concentration (Nd) and LWP is an unreliable measure of the impact of Nd variations on LWP due to the difficulty in establishing causality. In this work, we use satellite observations of the short-term development of clouds to examine the role of Nd perturbations in LWP variations. Similar to previous studies, an increase followed by a general decrease in LWP with increasing Nd is observed, suggesting an overall negative LWP response to Nd and a warming LWP adjustment to aerosol. However, the Nd also responds to the local environment, with aerosol production, entrainment from the free troposphere and wet scavenging all acting to modify the Nd. Many of these effects act to further steepen the Nd-LWP relationship and obscure the causal Nd impact on LWP. Using the temporal development of clouds to account for these feedbacks in the Nd-LWP system, a weaker negative Nd-LWP relationship is observed over most of the globe. This relationship is highly sensitive to the initial cloud state, illuminating the roles of different processes in shaping the Nd-LWP relationship. The nature of the current observing system limits this work to a single time period for observations, highlighting the need for more frequent observations of key cloud properties to constrain cloud behaviour at process timescales.

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Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACIs) are considered to be the most uncertain driver of present-day radiative forcing due to human activities. The nonlinearity of cloud-state changes to aerosol perturbations make it challenging to attribute causality in observed relationships of aerosol radiative forcing. Using correlations to infer causality can be challenging when meteorological variability also drives both aerosol and cloud changes independently. Natural and anthropogenic aerosol perturbations from well-defined sources provide "opportunistic experiments"(also known as natural experiments) to investigate ACI in cases where causality may be more confidently inferred. These perturbations cover a wide range of locations and spatiotemporal scales, including point sources such as volcanic eruptions or industrial sources, plumes from biomass burning or forest fires, and tracks from individual ships or shipping corridors. We review the different experimental conditions and conduct a synthesis of the available satellite datasets and field campaigns to place these opportunistic experiments on a common footing, facilitating new insights and a clearer understanding of key uncertainties in aerosol radiative forcing. Cloud albedo perturbations are strongly sensitive to background meteorological conditions. Strong liquid water path increases due to aerosol perturbations are largely ruled out by averaging across experiments. Opportunistic experiments have significantly improved process-level understanding of ACI, but it remains unclear how reliably the relationships found can be scaled to the global level, thus demonstrating a need for deeper investigation in order to improve assessments of aerosol radiative forcing and climate change.

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Marine stratocumuli are divided into different self-organized morphological regimes. The organized cellular regimes are referred to as open and closed mesoscale-cellular convective (MCC) clouds and are frequently observed in the Southern Ocean. There, many MCC clouds are mixed-phase clouds containing a mixture of ice and liquid. These MCC clouds exert substantial radiative cooling especially in the Southern Ocean. The cloud albedo of closed MCC cells is on average higher than of open MCC cells even for the identical cloud fraction (McCoy et al. 2017). We investigate whether cloud phase influences the spatial scale of MCC cells and how differences are associated with cloud-radiative effects. We examine the cloud phase with a vertically integrated cloud phase based on raDAR-liDAR (DARDAR) data product from the Cloud-Aerosol-Water-Radiation Interactions (ICARE) Data and Services Center (Danker et al. 2022). Currently, we are building and testing an algorithm identifying cellular organization and distribution of cell size in shortwave radiance retrievals from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua. We have tried different image segmentation techniques. The most promising results are obtained by applying the random walker image segmentation to selected scenes along the DARDAR track combined with a neural network classification of MCC clouds from Wood and Hartmann (2006). We will present the skill and limitation of this approach in obtaining cell-size statistics within open and closed MCC clouds. Further, we will show scientific results regarding the relationship between cloud phase and cell-size in open and closed MCC clouds in the Southern Ocean as well as changes in cloud albedo with cell-size. @en