1981–2020 winter ozone trends,Erzgebirge, Central Europe

Tropospheric ozone (O₃) acts as greenhouse gas and air pollutant. Over the last 100 years, tropospheric O₃ levels increased above background by factor 2.5 in the northern hemisphere and by factor 3–4 across Europe. The gas poses a potential risk to forest ecosystems in many mountain areas. There, O₃ concentrations result from long-range transport and are influenced by removal processes (dry deposition, gas phase and cloud removal, reduction on wet aerosols). Most trend studies analyzed annual-mean concentrations. We focus on winter O₃ trends at high altitudes in the German/Czech Erzgebirge (period 1981–2020) to avoid major noise from photochemical reactions and to better explain recent O₃ behavior in Central Europe. Hourly air quality and meteorological data from four stations (Carlsfeld, CAR; Fichtelberg, FIB; Schwartenberg, SWB; Zinnwald, ZIW) were used to analyze O₃ trends. The data can explain the complex O₃ formation and removal behavior.Three distinct periods of O₃-concentration trends can be discerned: i) Until the late 1980s, characterized by relatively low O₃ concentrations. ii) Dramatic transformation in the 1990s with changing air pollution in Central Europe. Strong O₃-concentration increase at FIB is corroborated by data from CAR and ZIW. iii) Stabilization as of 1997/98, when O₃ concentrations remained at the same level for all four stations, despite general regional air pollution decrease. Key results are:a) Winter O₃ trends mainly depend on O₃ concentration of air masses transported to the stations and on the O₃-removal potential (ORP) of clouds, not on local formation processes.b) ORP differs between clouds and fog, depending on droplet chemical composition. Fog from the North Bohemian Basin showed the highest ORP due to reaction with liquid phase S(IV). However, O₃ reactions with O₂⁻ in fog droplets showed high ORP, too, depending on cloud-water pH values and NO_x concentrations.c) So-called “Bohemian fog” decreased, and with it related ORP, while that of clouds from westerly and northwesterly air masses remained nearly unchanged since 1997/98.d) Decreasing ORP in clouds and fog (= higher O₃ concentration) oppose decreasing O₃ concentrations in westerly air masses. Both effects lead to unchanged O₃ levels in the Erzgebirge since 1997/98.     

用红外和水汽两个通道的卫星测值指定云迹风的高度

提出了一种改进的用红外和水汽两个通道的测值指定云迹风高度的算法。利用红外水汽散点图和云迹风本身自动地将有低云的目标区、有半透明卷云的目标区、有密蔽高云的目标区分开。在有低云的目标区和有密蔽高云的目标区用红外一个通道指定云高。在有半透明卷云的目标区用红外和水汽两个通道指定云高。在用两个通道的测值指定云高时，假定卷云高度以上不存在水汽，以红外和水汽两个通道亮温相同这个方程与两个通道辐射测值线性相关的方程联立解出云的高度     

An economical optical cloud/fog detector

A new, relatively low cost instrument has been developed to detect the presence of fog or cloud for fog/cloud sampling applications. The instrument uses attenuation of an 880 nm light emitting diode signal to detect cloud/fog drops in the optical path between a sending and receiving arm. Laboratory and field testing under a variety of conditions and fog types were carried out to determine the ability of the optical fog detector (OFD) to accurately detect cloud/fog presence as well as to provide some measure of liquid water content. Results indicated that the OFD provided a reliable estimate of fog presence as well as a reasonable estimate of liquid water content (LWC) under several different conditions. The OFD does appear to have an interference from rain, resulting in an overestimation of LWC during rainfall. This may occasionally give a false positive indication of fog presence.     

Cloud radiative forcing of subtropical low level clouds in global models

Simulations of subtropical marine low clouds and their radiative properties by nine coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models participating in the fourth assesment report (AR4) of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) are analyzed. Satellite observations of cloudiness and radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) are utilized for comparison. The analysis is confined to the marine subtropics in an attempt to isolate low cloudiness from tropical convective systems. All analyzed models have a negative bias in the low cloud fraction (model mean bias of −15%). On the other hand, the models show an excess of cloud radiative cooling in the region (model mean excess of 13 W m⁻²). The latter bias is shown to mainly originate from too much shortwave reflection by the models clouds rather than biases in the clear-sky fluxes. These results confirm earlier studies, thus no major progress in simulating the marine subtropical clouds is noted. As a consequence of the combination of these two biases, this study suggests that all investigated models are likely to overestimate the radiative response to changes in low level subtropical cloudiness.     

A one-dimensional Explicit Time-dependent cloud Model (ETM): Description and validation with a three-dimensional cloud resolving model

An algorithm for a one-dimensional Explicit Time-dependent cloud Model (ETM) that takes into account non-hydrostatic pressure, entrainment, cloud microphysics, lateral and vertical eddy mixing processes is developed and tested against a state-of-the-art cloud resolving three dimensional mesoscale model—the Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS). The numerical schemes and sub-grid scale processes are rather similar in both ETM and ARPS, although the dimensionality is different.Results show that the ETM is able to simulate the complete lifecycle for a cloud cell, featuring comparable zones of maximum vertical velocity, and overshooting layers on the cloud top. Heat and moisture fluxes within the cloud column of the ETM occur at the same level as ARPS, giving confidence towards adequate formulations in ETM. However, mass flux fields are not in good agreement; there is significant difference in intensity and the altitude where maxima occur. Sensitivity of the ARPS cloud to the amplitude and depth of the initial thermal bubble was examined; the resulting cloud showed sensitivity to both parameters. The maximum vertical velocity decreases with greater amplitude and occurs earlier. This was used as a tuning parameter to ensure similarity in the lifecycle of ETM and ARPS clouds.     

台风“云娜”在近海强度变化及结构特征的数值研究Ⅰ:云微物理参数化对云结构及降水特征的影响

首先对AREM模式模拟的台风基本结构和云结构进行验证,检验了模拟结果的可靠性.在此基础上,设计了5组试验来研究云微物理参数化方案对台风"云娜"云结构及降水特征的影响.试验设计主要突出冰相云微物理过程、云微物理特征引发的冷却效应以及霰下落速度的重要性.结果表明:云微物理参数化过程对云的发展和降水特征的影响更为显著.各试验的水凝物分布和强度不同,降水类型和强度存在较大差异,由此引起的云中热力结构也有较大区别;在所有试验方案中,24 h降水率最大差异为52.5 mm/h.云微物理过程对云和降水特征的具体影响表现在:(1)如果不考虑雨水蒸发冷却效应,此时台风内核上升运动强度最强(达到-19 Pa/s),雨水和霰粒子增长最明显,相对于对照试验增量分别为1.8和2.5 g/kg.(2)霰和雪的融化对于螺旋雨带中雨滴的增长十分重要,但他们可能不是云墙中雨水形成的主导因子.(3)不同方案的降水模拟特征也存在较大差别,采用暖云参数化后,降水区域最小,但其中对流降水比例最大(63.19%);霰落速减半后,降水区域最大,其中非对流降水比例也最大(51.15%).     

Impacts of aerosol chemical composition on microphysics and precipitation in deep convection

Aerosols affect precipitation by modifying cloud properties such as cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC). Aerosol effects on CDNC depend on aerosol properties such as number concentration, size spectrum, and chemical composition. This study focuses on the effects of aerosol chemical composition on CDNC and, thereby, precipitation in a mesoscale cloud ensemble (MCE) driven by deep convective clouds. The MCE was observed during the 1997 department of energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) summer experiment. Double-moment microphysics with explicit nucleation parameterization, able to take into account those three properties of aerosols, is used to investigate the effects of aerosol chemical composition on CDNC and precipitation. The effects of aerosol chemical compositions are investigated for both soluble and insoluble substances in aerosol particles. The effects of soluble substances are examined by varying mass fractions of two representative soluble components of aerosols in the continental air mass: sulfate and organics. The increase in organics with decreasing sulfate lowers critical supersaturation (S_c) and leads to higher CDNC. Higher CDNC results in smaller autoconversion of cloud liquid to rain. This provides more abundant cloud liquid as a source of evaporative cooling, leading to more intense downdrafts, low-level convergence, and updrafts. The resultant stronger updrafts produce more condensation and thus precipitation, as compared to the case of 100% sulfate aerosols. The conventional assumption of sulfate aerosol as a surrogate for the whole aerosol mass can be inapplicable for the case with the strong sources of organics. The less precipitation is simulated when an insoluble substance replaces organics as compared to when it replaces sulfate. When the effects of organics on the surface tension of droplet and solution term in the Köhler curve are deactivated by the insoluble substance, S_c is raised more than when the effects of sulfate on the solution term are deactivated by the insoluble substance. This leads to lower CDNC and, thus, larger autoconversion of cloud liquid to rain, providing less abundant cloud liquid as a source of evaporative cooling. The resultant less evaporative cooling produces less intense downdrafts, weaker low-level convergence, updrafts, condensation and, thereby, less precipitation in the case where organics is replaced by the insoluble substance than in the case where sulfate is replaced by the insoluble substance. The variation of precipitation caused by the change in the mass fraction between the soluble and insoluble substances is larger than that caused by the change in the mass fraction between the soluble substances.     

山东人工增雨宏观条件分析

提要 该文以1979～1989年4～6月、9～10月全省125个站逐时降雨量资料，分析了山东降雨的时、空分布。针对作业季节飞机人工增雨特点，将759个降雨日分为14种天气形势，对其形势特点、降雨特征、云状与降雨的关系作了较详细的统计分析。指出了不同月份飞机人工增雨的作业高度，得出了增雨潜力较大的天气、时间和地区，为增雨作业提供依据。