Aerosol-induced intensification of cooling effect of clouds during Indian summer monsoon.
Chandan Sarangi, Vijay P Kanawade, Sachchida N Tripathi, Abin Thomas, Dilip Ganguly
Author Information
Chandan Sarangi: Department of Civil Engineering and Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, 208016, UttarPradesh, India. ORCID
Vijay P Kanawade: Centre for Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, 500046, India. vijaykanawade03@yahoo.co.in. ORCID
Sachchida N Tripathi: Department of Civil Engineering and Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, 208016, UttarPradesh, India. snt@iitk.ac.in.
Abin Thomas: Centre for Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, 500046, India.
Dilip Ganguly: Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India.
Measurements and models show that enhanced aerosol concentrations can modify macro- and micro-physical properties of clouds. Here, we examine the effect of aerosols on continental mesoscale convective cloud systems during the Indian summer monsoon and find that these aerosol-cloud interactions have a net cooling effect at the surface and the top-of-atmosphere. Long-term (2002-2016) satellite data provide evidence of aerosol-induced cloud invigoration effect (AIvE) during the Indian summer monsoon. The AIvE leads to enhanced formation of thicker stratiform anvil clouds at higher altitudes. These AIvE-induced stratiform anvil clouds are also relatively brighter because of the presence of smaller sized ice particles. As a result, AIvE-induced increase in shortwave cloud radiative forcing is much larger than longwave cloud radiative forcing leading to the intensified net cooling effect of clouds over the Indian summer monsoon region. Such aerosol-induced cooling could subsequently decrease the surface diurnal temperature range and have significant feedbacks on lower tropospheric turbulence in a warmer and polluted future scenario.
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