Invited Presentation: Aerosol-induced changes in the organization of Tropical mixed-phase convective clouds

Title: Aerosol-induced changes in the organization of Tropical mixed-phase convective clouds

Abstract. We have simulated aerosol effects on a Tropical Western Pacific mixed-phase convective cloud system of two-day duration that is well constrained by observations. The response of precipitation to a 10-fold increase in aerosol is small (order 10%) due to compensation in the response of convective rain (increase) and stratiform rain (decrease). The enhancement in convective rain is mostly due to changes in cloud-system organization, cloud-size distribution and other cloud-field properties. Although aerosol-induced changes in total precipitation are small, there are much more noticeable changes in precipitation properties such as frequency, intensity, and spatiotemporal distribution. In this presentation, aerosol-induced changes in cloud-system organization and precipitation properties, and the microphysical/dynamical processes that control these changes will be shown and discussed.