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Clouds, Aerosol, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer: An ARM Mobile Facility DeploymentCapsule: A 21-month deployment to Graciosa Island in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is providing an unprecedented record of the clouds, aerosols and meteorology in a poorly-sampled remote marine environment The Clouds, Aerosol, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer (CAP-MBL) deployment at Graciosa Island in the Azores generated a 21 month (April 2009- December 2010) comprehensive dataset documenting clouds, aerosols and precipitation using the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF). The scientific aim of the deployment is to gain improved understanding of the interactions of clouds, aerosols and precipitation in the marine boundary layer. Graciosa Island straddles the boundary between the subtropics and midlatitudes in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, and consequently experiences a great diversity of meteorological and cloudiness conditions. Low clouds are the dominant cloud type, with stratocumulus and cumulus occurring regularly. Approximately half of all clouds contained precipitation detectable as radar echoes below the cloud base. Radar and satellite observations show that clouds with tops from 1- 11 km contribute more or less equally to surface-measured precipitation at Graciosa. A wide range of aerosol conditions was sampled during the deployment consistent with the diversity of sources as indicated by back trajectory analysis. Preliminary findings suggest important two-way interactions between aerosols and clouds at Graciosa, with aerosols affecting light precipitation and cloud radiative properties while being controlled in part by precipitation scavenging. The data from at Graciosa are being compared with short-range forecasts made a variety of models. A pilot analysis with two climate and two weather forecast models shows that they reproduce the observed time-varying vertical structure of lower-tropospheric cloud fairly well, but the cloud-nucleating aerosol concentrations less well. The Graciosa site has been chosen to be a permanent fixed ARM site that became operational in October 2013.
Document ID
20150023388
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Wood, Robert
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Wyant, Matthew
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Bretherton, Christopher S.
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Remillard, Jasmine
(Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Kollias, Pavlos
(McGill Univ. Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Fletcher, Jennifer
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
Stemmler, Jayson
(Washington Univ. Seattle, WA, United States)
de Szoeke, Simone
(Oregon State Univ. Corvallis, OR, United States)
Yuter, Sandra
(North Carolina State Univ. Raleigh, NC, United States)
Miller, Matthew
(North Carolina State Univ. Raleigh, NC, United States)
Mechem, David
(Kansas Univ. Lawrence, KS, United States)
Tselioudis, George
(NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies New York, NY, United States)
Chiu, J. Christine
(Reading Univ. United Kingdom)
Mann, Julian A. L.
(Reading Univ. United Kingdom)
O'Connor, Ewan J.
(Reading Univ. United Kingdom)
Hogan, Robin J.
(Reading Univ. United Kingdom)
Dong, Xiquan
(North Dakota Univ. Grand Forks, ND, United States)
Miller, Mark
(Rutgers - The State Univ. New Brunswick, NJ, United States)
Ghate, Virendra
(Argonne National Lab. IL, United States)
Jefferson, Anne
(Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Min, Qilong
(State Univ. of New York Albany, NY, United States)
Minnis, Patrick
(NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Palikonda, Rabindra
(Science Systems and Applications, Inc. Hampton, VA, United States)
Albrecht, Bruce
(Miami Univ. Coral Gables, FL, United States)
Luke, Ed
(Brookhaven National Lab. Upton, NY, United States)
Hannay, Cecile
(National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder, CO, United States)
Lin, Yanluan
(Tsinghua Univ. Bejing, China)
Date Acquired
December 18, 2015
Publication Date
March 1, 2015
Publication Information
Publication: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Publisher: AMS
Volume: 96
Issue: 3
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN19573
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0006712
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0006701
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0000991
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0008468
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX14AB99A
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0006865MOD0002
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0007233
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0006736
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
aerosols
forecasting
air water interactions
deployment
atmospheric boundary layer
Atlantic Ocean
marine meteorology

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