HR: 18:05h
AN: A44B-08 [Abstracts]
TI: A Link between the Pacific Storm Track and Asian Pollution Aerosols
AU: Li, G
AF: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, 3150 TAMU, College Station,
TX 77843-3150, United States
AU: * Zhang, R
EM: zhang@ariel.met.tamu.edu
AF: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, 3150 TAMU, College Station,
TX 77843-3150, United States
AU: Fan, J
AF: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, 3150 TAMU, College Station,
TX 77843-3150, United States
AU: Wu, D
AF: Microwave Atmospheric Sciences, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of
Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Molina, M
AF: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, 2040 Urey Hall
Addition, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, United States
AB:
Indirect radiative forcing of atmospheric aerosols by modification of cloud processes poses the largest
uncertainty in climate prediction. We show here a trend of increasing deep convective clouds over the Pacific in
winter from long-term satellite cloud measurements (1984-2005). Simulations using a cloud-resolving Weather
Research and Forecast model reveal that the enhanced deep convective clouds are reproduced when accounting
for the aerosol effect from the Asian pollution outflow, which leads to intensified storms. We suggest that the
wintertime Pacific is highly vulnerable to the aerosol-cloud interaction because of favorable cloud dynamical and
microphysical conditions from the coupling between the Pacific storm track and Asian pollution outflow. The
intensified Pacific storm track is climatically significant and represents possibly the first detected climate signal of
the aerosol-cloud interaction associated with anthropogenic pollution. In addition to radiative forcing on climate,
intensification of the Pacific storm track likely impacts the global general circulation due to its fundamental role in
meridional heat transport and forcing of stationary waves.
DE: 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906)
DE: 0322 Constituent sources and sinks
DE: 0345 Pollution: urban and regional (0305, 0478, 4251)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly