Effects of Different Types of Aerosols on Deep Convective Clouds and Anvil Cirrus

Abstract

Deep convective clouds and associated anvils exert opposite radiative effects. The impact of different aerosol types on these two categories of clouds remains a major challenge in understanding aerosol-cloud interactions. Using 11-year satellite retrievals, we find that cloud top height (CTH) and ice cloud fraction of deep convective clouds and anvil cirrus identified by Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization increase with small aerosol loadings and level off or even decrease with further aerosol increase. Compared with continental aerosols, CTH affected by marine aerosols starts to decrease at smaller aerosol loadings. Moreover, cloud optical depth (COD) of deep convective clouds decreases with aerosol loadings. COD of anvil cirrus increases with increased loadings of most aerosol types but decreases with smoke aerosol. These relationships are mainly attributed to the aerosol effect rather than the meteorological effects. Our findings contribute to the development of models and better assessment of aerosol-cloud radiative forcing.