Quantifying sensitivity of aerosol-cloud interactions to atmospheric state through cluster analysis
W.S.J. Kroese (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
B. van Diedenhoven – Mentor (SRON–Netherlands Institute for Space Research)
Franziska Glassmeier – Mentor (TU Delft - Atmospheric Remote Sensing)
O. Hasekamp – Graduation committee member (SRON–Netherlands Institute for Space Research)
Marc Schleiss – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Atmospheric Remote Sensing)
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Abstract
Cloud droplet number concentrations change due to perturbations in aerosol concentrations. The strength of this correlation covaries with meteorology. Using polarimetric aerosol estimates and MODIS-2 cloud retrievals we compute the interaction strength per meteorological regime, which we determined using clustering techniques on MERRA-2 reanalysis data. The clusters that were found are similar to other clustering studies. The clusters are however not well-separated. The resulting interaction strengths are slightly higher compared to previous satellite studies. The clusters which show large scale vertical movement, generally have higher interaction strengths.