Orit Altaratz

From aerosol-limited to invigoration of warm convective clouds

Invigorating convection in warm clouds Atmospheric aerosols—tiny airborne particles—affect the way clouds form and how they affect climate. Koren et al. investigated how the formation of warm clouds, such as those that form over the oceans, depends on pollution levels (see the Perspective by Remer). Aerosols affect cloud formation in cleaner air disproportionately more than in more polluted air. Before the widespread air pollution of the industrial era, it seems, warm convective clouds may have covered much less of the oceans than they do today. Science, this issue p. 1143; see also p. 1089 Low concentrations of atmospheric aerosols have a dramatic effect on the invigoration of convection in warm clouds. [Also see Perspective by Remer] Among all cloud-aerosol interactions, the invigoration effect is the most elusive. Most of the studies that do suggest this effect link it to deep convective clouds with a warm base and cold top. Here, we provide evidence from observations and numerical modeling of a dramatic aerosol effect on warm clouds. We propose that convective-cloud invigoration by aerosols can be viewed as an extension of the concept of aerosol-limited clouds, where cloud development is limited by the availability of cloud-condensation nuclei. A transition from pristine to slightly polluted atmosphere yields estimated negative forcing of ~15 watts per square meter (cooling), suggesting that a substantial part of this anthropogenic forcing over the oceans occurred at the beginning of the industrial era, when the marine atmosphere experienced such transformation.

Lightning activity over land and sea on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean

This paper presents a study of the characteristics of lightning activity during the Cyprus low winter storms over the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The focus is on changes in the nature of thunderstorms crossing the coastline from the sea into the northern and central parts of Israel, as manifested in their electrical activity. It is based on the Lightning Position and Tracking System (LPATS) measurements of lightning ground strikes during four winter seasons between 1995 and 1999. The spatial distribution shows a maximum of lightning ground strikes over Mount Carmel, possibly due to its topographical forcing. The annual variation shows a major maximum in January with two minor peaks, one in November and another in March, which can be explained by changes in the static instability of the atmosphere throughout the rainy period. The average fraction of positive ground flashes was found to be 6% and their average peak current 141 kA. The average peak current of negative ground flashes was 227 kA. Larger frequencies of ground flashes were detected over the sea than over land during the study period. This is probably due to the large heat and humidity fluxes from the sea surface, which destabilize the colder air above and drive cloud convection. The annual distribution shows that during midwinter (December‐January‐ February) there is higher flash density over the sea, while during autumn and spring the flash density is similar above the two regions. The diurnal variation shows that the maximum in maritime lightning activity was at 0500 LST and over land at 1300 LST. The mean peak current of positive ground flashes was higher over land and of negative ground flashes, over the sea.

Lightning phenomenology in the Tel Aviv area from 1989 to 1996

We present the results of a continuing survey of lightning characteristics in Tel-Aviv, Israel, for the period 1989–1996, based on daily registrations of a CGR3 lightning flash counter [Mackerras, 1985]. The lightning season in Israel lasts from October to April, and the long-term average of the annual flash density in the Tel-Aviv area was found to be 4.7±2.3 km−2 y−1. The mean intracloud/cloud-to-ground flash ratio was found to be 2.5±1.3, with maxima in the autumn months. This may be attributed to the higher altitudes of the −10°C and −25°C isotherms (which signify the locations of charge centers) and to the weaker wind shears that occur in these months. The average fraction of positive ground flashes (PGF) in Tel-Aviv thunderstorms was F = 0.16±0.08. Storms that exhibited larger than average PGF fraction were found to be subjected to a strong shear of the horizontal wind. The observed empirical relation between the PGF fraction and the intensity of the wind shear W (in m s−1 km−1) was log F = 0.0305W + 0.073.

Relative humidity and its effect on aerosol optical depth in the vicinity of convective clouds

The hygroscopic growth of aerosols is controlled by the relative humidity (RH) and changes the aerosols? physical and hence optical properties. Observational studies of aerosol?cloud interactions evaluate the aerosol concentration using optical parameters, such as the aerosol optical depth (AOD), which can be affected by aerosol humidification. In this study we evaluate the RH background and variance values, in the lower cloudy atmosphere, an additional source of variance in AOD values beside the natural changes in aerosol concentration. In addition, we estimate the bias in RH and AOD, related to cloud thickness. This provides the much needed range of RH-related biases in studies of aerosol?cloud interaction.Twelve years of radiosonde measurements (June?August) in thirteen globally distributed stations are analyzed. The estimated non-biased AOD variance due to day-to-day changes in RH is found to be around 20% and the biases linked to cloud development around 10%. Such an effect is important and should be considered in direct and indirect aerosol effect estimations but it is inadequate to account for most of the AOD trend found in observational studies of aerosol?cloud interactions.

Aerosol Effect on the Mobility of Cloud Droplets

Cloud droplet mobility is referred to here as a measure of the droplets ability to move with ambient air. We claim that an important part of the aerosol effect on convective clouds is driven by changes in droplet mobility. We show that the mass-weighted average droplet terminal velocity, defined here as the effective terminal velocity (eta) and its spread (sigma_eta) serve as direct measures of this effect. Moreover, we develop analytical estimations for eta and sigma_eta to show that changes in the relative dispersion of eta (epsilon_eta = sigma_eta/eta) can serve as a sensitive predictor of the onset of droplet-collection processes.

Winter Thunderstorms in Israel: A Study with Lightning Location Systems and Weather Radar

Abstract A study of the morphology and evolution of winter thunderstorms in Israel and over the eastern Mediterranean was conducted during the 1995–96 winter season. Electrically active cells were analyzed by combining data from weather radar and an operational lightning positioning and tracking system. This enabled the identification of reflectivity features of electrically active cells, and tracing of the spatial and temporal evolution of thunderstorms. The results show that, in winter, rain clouds became thunderclouds if their echo top was higher than 6500 m (at a temperature level colder than −30°C), provided that the reflectivity at the level of the −10°C isotherm was larger than 35 dBZ. The period between the first radar echo and the first detected lightning flash (probably a ground flash) was found to be 10–15 min, a period at which the top of the 40-dBZ echo was located higher than the −8°C level.

Aerosol effect on the evolution of the thermodynamic properties of warm convective cloud fields

Convective cloud formation and evolution strongly depend on environmental temperature and humidity profiles. The forming clouds change the profiles that created them by redistributing heat and moisture. Here we show that the evolution of the field’s thermodynamic properties depends heavily on the concentration of aerosol, liquid or solid particles suspended in the atmosphere. Under polluted conditions, rain formation is suppressed and the non-precipitating clouds act to warm the lower part of the cloudy layer (where there is net condensation) and cool and moisten the upper part of the cloudy layer (where there is net evaporation), thereby destabilizing the layer. Under clean conditions, precipitation causes net warming of the cloudy layer and net cooling of the sub-cloud layer (driven by rain evaporation), which together act to stabilize the atmosphere with time. Previous studies have examined different aspects of the effects of clouds on their environment. Here, we offer a complete analysis of the cloudy atmosphere, spanning the aerosol effect from instability-consumption to enhancement, below, inside and above warm clouds, showing the temporal evolution of the effects. We propose a direct measure for the magnitude and sign of the aerosol effect on thermodynamic instability.

On the signature of the cirrus twilight zone

Cirrus clouds are known to play a key role in the climate system, but their overall effect on Earth?s radiation budget is not yet fully quantified. The uncertainties are, in part, due to ambiguities in cirrus extent or coverage. Here we show that despite careful filtering of cloudy pixels, cirrus clouds have a clear statistical signature. This signature can be estimated by the proximity to detectable cirrus clouds. Such a residual signature can affect retrievals that rely on a cloud-free atmosphere, such as aerosol optical depth (AOD) or sea surface temperature. Analyzing MODIS raw-data and products, we show a clear increase in the reflectance when approaching detectable cirrus clouds. We estimated a mean increase in AOD of 0.03???0.01 and a decrease in the Angstrom-exponent of ?0.22???0.20 in the first kilometer around detectable cirrus. The effect decays tenfold at a typical distance of 5.5???1.8 km. Such trends confirm the contribution of large particles that are likely to be ice crystals to the so-called cloud-free atmosphere near detectable cirrus clouds.

Core and margin in warm convective clouds. Part II: aerosol effects on core properties

This paper follows from Part I which sought to examine the various methods of defining the cores and margins of convective clouds by using buoyancy, RH, and vertical velocity to define the core. They showed that these core diagnostics can be subsets of one another, but that this varies in space and time. This follow-on study examines the impacts of varying the aerosol concentration on the core definitions. Given that aerosols can change the cloud DSD, the condensation/evaporation rates can change,

The Consistent Behavior of Tropical Rain: Average Reflectivity Vertical Profiles Determined by Rain Top Height

AbstractSixteen years of Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM) reflectivity profile data are collected for oceanic, continental, and island tropical regions within the boreal winter intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). When sorted by the rain top height (RTH), a consistent behavior emerges where the average reflectivity profiles originating at different RTHs form non-overlapping manifolds in the height–reflectivity space, excluding the brightband regions for stratiform type profiles. Based on reflectivity slope (dBZ km−1) profile characteristics and physical considerations, the profiles are divided into three classes: 1) cold profiles, which originate above the −20°C isotherm height and display convergence to a single reflectivity slope profile independent of RTH; 2) warm profiles, which originate below the 0°C isotherm height and display strong reflectivity slope dependence on RTH, with slope values per RTH linearly decreasing with decreased height; and 3) mixed profiles, which originate at the layer ...