scholarly journals The evolution of cloud and aerosol microphysics at the summit of Mt. Tai, China

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (22) ◽  
pp. 13735-13751
Author(s):  
Jiarong Li ◽  
Chao Zhu ◽  
Hui Chen ◽  
Defeng Zhao ◽  
Likun Xue ◽  
...  

Abstract. The influence of aerosols, both natural and anthropogenic, remains a major area of uncertainty when predicting the properties and the behaviours of clouds and their influence on climate. In an attempt to better understand the microphysical properties of cloud droplets, the simultaneous variations in aerosol microphysics and their potential interactions during cloud life cycles in the North China Plain, an intensive observation took place from 17 June to 30 July 2018 at the summit of Mt. Tai. Cloud microphysical parameters were monitored simultaneously with number concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei (NCCN) at different supersaturations, PM2.5 mass concentrations, particle size distributions and meteorological parameters. Number concentrations of cloud droplets (NC), liquid water content (LWC) and effective radius of cloud droplets (reff) show large variations among 40 cloud events observed during the campaign. The low values of reff and LWC observed at Mt. Tai are comparable with urban fog. Clouds on clean days are more susceptible to the change in concentrations of particle number (NP), while clouds formed on polluted days might be more sensitive to meteorological parameters, such as updraft velocity and cloud base height. Through studying the size distributions of aerosol particles and cloud droplets, we find that particles larger than 150 nm play important roles in forming cloud droplets with the size of 5–10 µm. In general, LWC consistently varies with reff. As NC increases, reff changes from a trimodal distribution to a unimodal distribution and shifts to smaller size mode. By assuming a constant cloud thickness and ignoring any lifetime effects, increase in NC and decrease in reff would increase cloud albedo, which may induce a cooling effect on the local climate system. Our results contribute valuable information to enhance the understanding of cloud and aerosol properties, along with their potential interactions on the North China plain.

Author(s):  
Min Xue ◽  
Jianzhong Ma ◽  
Guiqian Tang ◽  
Shengrui Tong ◽  
Bo Hu ◽  
...  

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Gangqiang Zhang ◽  
Wei Zheng ◽  
Wenjie Yin ◽  
Weiwei Lei

The launch of GRACE satellites has provided a new avenue for studying the terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA) with unprecedented accuracy. However, the coarse spatial resolution greatly limits its application in hydrology researches on local scales. To overcome this limitation, this study develops a machine learning-based fusion model to obtain high-resolution (0.25°) groundwater level anomalies (GWLA) by integrating GRACE observations in the North China Plain. Specifically, the fusion model consists of three modules, namely the downscaling module, the data fusion module, and the prediction module, respectively. In terms of the downscaling module, the GRACE-Noah model outperforms traditional data-driven models (multiple linear regression and gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT)) with the correlation coefficient (CC) values from 0.24 to 0.78. With respect to the data fusion module, the groundwater level from 12 monitoring wells is incorporated with climate variables (precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration) using the GBDT algorithm, achieving satisfactory performance (mean values: CC: 0.97, RMSE: 1.10 m, and MAE: 0.87 m). By merging the downscaled TWSA and fused groundwater level based on the GBDT algorithm, the prediction module can predict the water level in specified pixels. The predicted groundwater level is validated against 6 in-situ groundwater level data sets in the study area. Compare to the downscaling module, there is a significant improvement in terms of CC metrics, on average, from 0.43 to 0.71. This study provides a feasible and accurate fusion model for downscaling GRACE observations and predicting groundwater level with improved accuracy.


Author(s):  
Weiqi Xu ◽  
Chun Chen ◽  
Yanmei Qiu ◽  
Conghui Xie ◽  
Yunle Chen ◽  
...  

Organic aerosol (OA), a large fraction of fine particles, has a large impact on climate radiative forcing and human health, and the impact depends strongly on size distributions. Here we...


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1687-1700
Author(s):  
Li-chao ZHAI ◽  
Li-hua LÜ ◽  
Zhi-qiang DONG ◽  
Li-hua ZHANG ◽  
Jing-ting ZHANG ◽  
...  

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