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Aerosol–Cloud Interactions in Urban Environments (Invited Presentation)

Presentation Date
Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 1:30pm
Location
George R. Brown Convention Center - Remote
Authors

Author

Abstract

Urbanization renders extreme changes in both land use and land cover and anthropogenic aerosols. Aerosol impacts on convective storms can be unique due to interacting with urban land effects, which modify boundary meteorology and increase the spatial gradient of temperature and moisture. I will present our recent studies of anthropogenic aerosol impacts on convective storms from urban cities located at the different climate regimes, ranging from the tropical continent (Manaus), subtropical coast region (Houston), to midlatitude inland area (Kansas City). We find that the significance of aerosol impacts depends on background aerosol conditions and background meteorology. Anthropogenic aerosols from cities significantly enhance storm intensity and precipitation downwind particularly at the urban-rural boundaries in warm and humid tropics and subtropics with clean background conditions. Anthropogenic aerosol effects alone is limited at the midlatitude inland area where the background aerosols are relatively high, and the storm is strongly forced by dynamics. However, the joint effect of anthropogenic aerosols with urban land notably enhances occurrences of large hail.

Category
14th Symposium on Aerosol - Cloud - Climate Interactions