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Marquis & Harrington 2005
Marquis, J. and Harrington, J.Y. (2005). Radiative influences on drop and cloud condensation nuclei equilibrium in stratocumulus. Journal of Geophysical Research 110: doi: 10.1029/2004JD005401. issn: 0148-0227.

Radiative heating and cooling occurs throughout most of a stratocumulus cloud layer. Shortwave (SW) heating of individual drops can be strong enough that drop temperatures at equilibrium deviate by as much as 6¿C from the surrounding environment. These large temperature differences lead to substantial errors when the classical equation for vapor growth is used. A new form of the vapor growth equation is derived for cases of strong radiative heating. The new equation is used to assess the equilibrium supersaturation (seq) state of drops and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) within a stratocumulus cloud. Longwave (LW) cloud top cooling has two primary effects on seq. It tends to reduce seq for large drops to values as low as -6%, providing for drop growth at subsaturations. It also tends to reduce the critical supersaturation and size at which larger CCN activate to become growing cloud drops. In contrast, LW heating of cloud base suppresses the growth of cloud drops and CCN. Larger CCN (sizes between 0.5 and 5 ¿m) lose their K¿hler curve maximum, indicating restricted CCN growth. Solar heating produces seq up to 20% for drops with sizes between 500 and 1000 ¿m, indicating strong evaporation of drizzle drops. Since solar absorption increases more slowly with drop size than LW emission, a minimum appears in the K¿hler curves at sizes between 20 and 100 ¿m, suggesting a preferred size range for vapor growth in SW heated clouds. Like LW heating, SW heating causes suppression of growth for larger CCN.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Cloud/radiation interaction, Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906), Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Cloud physics and chemistry
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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