Aerosol-boundary-layer-monsoon interactions amplify semi-direct effect of biomass smoke on low cloud formation in Southeast Asia

Ke Ding; Xin Huang; Aijun Ding; Minghuai Wang; Hang Su; Veli-Matti Kerminen; Tuukka Petäjä; Zhemin Tan; Zilin Wang; Derong Zhou; Jianning Sun; Hong Liao; Huijun Wang; Ken Carslaw; Robert Wood; Paquita Zuidema; Daniel Rosenfeld; Markku Kulmala; Congbin Fu; Ulrich Pöschl; Yafang Cheng; Meinrat O Andreae

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26728-4

Aerosol-boundary-layer-monsoon interactions amplify semi-direct effect of biomass smoke on low cloud formation in Southeast Asia

Nat Commun. 2021 Nov 5;12(1):6416. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26728-4.

Authors

Ke Ding^#^{1

2

3}, Xin Huang^#^{1

2

3}, Aijun Ding^{4

5

6}, Minghuai Wang^{1

2}, Hang Su⁷, Veli-Matti Kerminen⁸, Tuukka Petäjä^{1

8}, Zhemin Tan^{1

2}, Zilin Wang¹, Derong Zhou^{1

2}, Jianning Sun^{1

2}, Hong Liao⁹, Huijun Wang¹⁰, Ken Carslaw¹¹, Robert Wood¹², Paquita Zuidema¹³, Daniel Rosenfeld^{1

14}, Markku Kulmala^{1

8}, Congbin Fu^{1

2}, Ulrich Pöschl⁷, Yafang Cheng¹⁵, Meinrat O Andreae^{7

16

17}

Affiliations

¹ Joint International Research Laboratory of Atmospheric and Earth System Sciences, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
² Jiangsu Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center of Climate Change, Nanjing, China.
³ Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
⁴ Joint International Research Laboratory of Atmospheric and Earth System Sciences, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. dingaj@nju.edu.cn.
⁵ Jiangsu Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center of Climate Change, Nanjing, China. dingaj@nju.edu.cn.
⁶ Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. dingaj@nju.edu.cn.
⁷ Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
⁸ Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR)/Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
⁹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.
¹⁰ School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University of Information and Science Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China.
¹¹ Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
¹² Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
¹³ Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA.
¹⁴ Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel.
¹⁵ Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany. yafang.cheng@mpic.de.
¹⁶ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Geology and Geophysics, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Low clouds play a key role in the Earth-atmosphere energy balance and influence agricultural production and solar-power generation. Smoke aloft has been found to enhance marine stratocumulus through aerosol-cloud interactions, but its role in regions with strong human activities and complex monsoon circulation remains unclear. Here we show that biomass burning aerosols aloft strongly increase the low cloud coverage over both land and ocean in subtropical southeastern Asia. The degree of this enhancement and its spatial extent are comparable to that in the Southeast Atlantic, even though the total biomass burning emissions in Southeast Asia are only one-fifth of those in Southern Africa. We find that a synergetic effect of aerosol-cloud-boundary layer interaction with the monsoon is the main reason for the strong semi-direct effect and enhanced low cloud formation in southeastern Asia.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.15073974