Simulations and Analysis of Aerosol–Cloud–Radiation Interactions over East China

Major industrial regions generally exhibit relatively high aerosol concentrations, and how aerosols impact radiation and cloud properties, and how aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions modulate cloud and precipitation processes, is an interesting and challenging topic. As one of the major industrial regions, Each China suffers from heavy haze pollution, with aerosol properties influencing by complex physical and chemical processes. Aerosol Physical and chemical properties, such as concentration, size distribution, chemical component, mixing state, etc. could change significantly depending on the processes, and affect the radiation and energy budget. In this study, by employing a nested version of global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) coupled with a size-resolved aerosol module (APM), we explored the impact of aerosol microphysics on radiation at top of atmosphere (TOA), surface, and heating rate over East China. In comparison to aerosol-radiation interaction, aerosol-cloud interactions play an important role in climate prediction, but remains large uncertainties. We thus investigated the aerosol-cloud correlation by employing long term MODIS satellite data (2003~2016). The cloud parameters including cloud effective radius (CER), liquid water path (LWP), cloud optical depth (COD), and liquid water path (LWP) and their relations with AOD were examined. To understand the mechanisms leading to these findings, the ERA-interim reanalysis data was employed to investigate the impacts of lower tropospheric stability, vertical velocity, and precipitable water on the correlations between AOD and cloud properties. Possible explanations were discussed.