Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean

Mineral dust and ice cloud observations from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) are used to assess the relationships between desert dust aerosols and ice clouds over the tropical Atlantic Ocean during the hurricane season 2008. Cloud property histograms are first adjusted for va...

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Main Authors: Lars Klüser, Thomas Popp
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2017-01-01
Series:Advances in Meteorology
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2017/5278120
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author Lars Klüser
Thomas Popp
author_facet Lars Klüser
Thomas Popp
author_sort Lars Klüser
collection DOAJ
description Mineral dust and ice cloud observations from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) are used to assess the relationships between desert dust aerosols and ice clouds over the tropical Atlantic Ocean during the hurricane season 2008. Cloud property histograms are first adjusted for varying cloud top temperature or ice water path distributions with a Bayesian approach to account for meteorological constraints on the cloud variables. Then, histogram differences between dust load classes are used to describe the impact of dust load on cloud property statistics. The analysis of the histogram differences shows that ice crystal sizes are reduced with increasing aerosol load and ice cloud optical depth and ice water path are increased. The distributions of all three variables broaden and get less skewed in dusty environments. For ice crystal size the significant bimodality is reduced and the order of peaks is reversed. Moreover, it is shown that not only are distributions of ice cloud variables simply shifted linearly but also variance, skewness, and complexity of the cloud variable distributions are significantly affected. This implies that the whole cloud variable distributions have to be considered for indirect aerosol effects in any application for climate modelling.
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spelling doaj-art-3c5af7b0e44d4851bde877ffe82f13042025-02-03T01:04:42ZengWileyAdvances in Meteorology1687-93091687-93172017-01-01201710.1155/2017/52781205278120Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic OceanLars Klüser0Thomas Popp1Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum (DFD), 82334 Wessling, GermanyDeutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum (DFD), 82334 Wessling, GermanyMineral dust and ice cloud observations from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) are used to assess the relationships between desert dust aerosols and ice clouds over the tropical Atlantic Ocean during the hurricane season 2008. Cloud property histograms are first adjusted for varying cloud top temperature or ice water path distributions with a Bayesian approach to account for meteorological constraints on the cloud variables. Then, histogram differences between dust load classes are used to describe the impact of dust load on cloud property statistics. The analysis of the histogram differences shows that ice crystal sizes are reduced with increasing aerosol load and ice cloud optical depth and ice water path are increased. The distributions of all three variables broaden and get less skewed in dusty environments. For ice crystal size the significant bimodality is reduced and the order of peaks is reversed. Moreover, it is shown that not only are distributions of ice cloud variables simply shifted linearly but also variance, skewness, and complexity of the cloud variable distributions are significantly affected. This implies that the whole cloud variable distributions have to be considered for indirect aerosol effects in any application for climate modelling.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2017/5278120
spellingShingle Lars Klüser
Thomas Popp
Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
Advances in Meteorology
title Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
title_full Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
title_fullStr Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
title_full_unstemmed Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
title_short Large-Scale Analysis of Relationships between Mineral Dust, Ice Cloud Properties, and Precipitation from Satellite Observations Using a Bayesian Approach: Theoretical Basis and First Results for the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
title_sort large scale analysis of relationships between mineral dust ice cloud properties and precipitation from satellite observations using a bayesian approach theoretical basis and first results for the tropical atlantic ocean
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2017/5278120
work_keys_str_mv AT larskluser largescaleanalysisofrelationshipsbetweenmineraldusticecloudpropertiesandprecipitationfromsatelliteobservationsusingabayesianapproachtheoreticalbasisandfirstresultsforthetropicalatlanticocean
AT thomaspopp largescaleanalysisofrelationshipsbetweenmineraldusticecloudpropertiesandprecipitationfromsatelliteobservationsusingabayesianapproachtheoreticalbasisandfirstresultsforthetropicalatlanticocean