The Role of Aerosol Properties on Cloud Nucleation Processes

Abstract

The clouds that develop in maritime or polluted environments have significant differences in their properties. A number of modeling sensitivity tests have been performed to describe the physical processes related to aerosol - cloud interactions at various stages of cloud development. Precipitation amounts and cloud structure were found to be very sensitive to changes in the size distribution and number concentrations of the aerosols. Certain combinations of CCN/IN properties and atmospheric properties may lead to significant enhancement of convection and precipitation. These interactions are not linear and it is the synergetic effects between meteorology and atmospheric chemistry that are responsible for the variation of precipitation. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.