Citing articles: 6 View citing articles Tellus (2009), 61B, 270-296 C were explored based on measured size-number distributions and chemical composition. The size-resolved complex refractive index of the dust was derived with real parts of 1.51-1.55 and imaginary parts of 0.0008-0.006 at 550 nm wavelength. At this spectral range a single scattering albedo ω o and an asymmetry parameter g of about 0.8 were derived. These values were largely determined by the presence of coarse particles. Backscatter coefficients and lidar ratios calculated with Mie theory (spherical particles) were not found to be in agreement with independently measured lidar data. Obviously the measured Saharan mineral dust particles were of non-spherical shape. With the help of these lidar and sun photometer measurements the particle shape as well as the spherical equivalence were estimated. It turned out that volume equivalent oblate spheroids with an effective axis ratio of 1:1.6 matched these data best. This aspect ratio was also confirmed by independent single particle analyses using a scanning electron microscope. In order to perform the non-spherical computations, a database of single particle optical properties was assembled for oblate and prolate spheroidal particles. These data were also the basis for simulating the non-sphericity effects on the dust optical properties: ω o is influenced by up to a magnitude of only 1% and g is diminished by up to 4% assuming volume equivalent oblate spheroids with an axis ratio of 1:1.6 instead of spheres. Changes in the extinction optical depth are within 3.5%. Non-spherical particles affect the downwelling radiative transfer close to the bottom of the atmosphere, however, they significantly enhance the backscattering towards the top of the atmosphere: Compared to Mie theory the particle non-sphericity leads to forced cooling of the Earth-atmosphere system in the solar spectral range for both dust over ocean and desert.

The SAMUM field campaign in southern Morocco in May/June 2006 provides valuable data to study the emission, and the horizontal and vertical transports of mineral dust in the Northern Sahara. Radiosonde and lidar observations show differential advection of air masses with different characteristics during stable nighttime conditions and up to 5‐km deep vertical mixing in the strongly convective boundary layer during the day. Lagrangian and synoptic analyses of selected dust periods point to a topographic channel from western Tunisia to central Algeria as a dust source region. Significant emission events are related to cold surges from the Mediterranean in association with eastward passing upper‐level waves and lee cyclogeneses south of the Atlas Mountains. Other relevant events are local emissions under a distinct cut‐off low over northwestern Africa and gust fronts associated with dry thunderstorms over the Malian and Algerian Sahara. The latter are badly represented in analyses from the European Centre for Medium–Range Weather Forecasts and in a regional dust model, most likely due to problems with moist convective dynamics and a lack of observations in this region. This aspect needs further study. The meteorological source identification is consistent with estimates of optical and mineralogical properties of dust samples.

This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported LicenseIn May-June 2006, airborne and ground-based solar (0.3-2.2 mu m) and thermal infrared (4-42 mu m) radiation measurements have been performed in Morocco within the Saharan Mineral Dust Experiment (SAMUM). Upwelling and downwelling solar irradiances have been measured using the Spectral Modular Airborne Radiation Measurement System (SMART)-Albedometer. With these data, the areal spectral surface albedo for typical surface types in southeastern Morocco was derived from airborne measurements for the first time. The results are compared to the surface albedo retrieved from collocated satellite measurements, and partly considerable deviations are observed. Using measured surface and atmospheric properties, the spectral and broad-band dust radiative forcing at top-of-atmosphere (TOA) and at the surface has been estimated. The impact of the surface albedo on the solar radiative forcing of Saharan dust is quantified. In the SAMUM case of 19 May 2006, TOA solar radiative forcing varies by 12 W m(-2) per 0.1 surface-albedo change. For the thermal infrared component, values of up to +22 W m(-2) were derived. The net (solar plus thermal infrared) TOA radiative forcing varies between -19 and +24 W m(-2) for a broad-band solar surface albedo of 0.0 and 0.32, respectively. Over the bright surface of southeastern Morocco, the Saharan dust always has a net warming effect

Abstract. Arctic boundary-layer clouds were investigated with remote sensing and in situ instruments during the Arctic Study of Tropospheric Aerosol, Clouds and Radiation (ASTAR) campaign in March and April 2007. The clouds formed in a cold air outbreak over the open Greenland Sea. Beside the predominant mixed-phase clouds pure liquid water and ice clouds were observed. Utilizing measurements of solar radiation reflected by the clouds three methods to retrieve the thermodynamic phase of the cloud are introduced and compared. Two ice indices I S and I P were obtained by analyzing the spectral pattern of the cloud top reflectance in the near infrared (1500-1800 nm wavelength) spectral range which is characterized by ice and water absorption. While I S analyzes the spectral slope of the reflectance in this wavelength range, I P utilizes a principle component analysis (PCA) of the spectral reflectance. A third ice index I A is based on the different side scattering of spherical liquid water particles and nonspherical ice crystals which was recorded in simultaneous measurements of spectral cloud albedo and reflectance.Radiative transfer simulations show that I S , I P and I A range between 5 to 80, 0 to 8 and 1 to 1.25 respectively with lowest values indicating pure liquid water clouds and highest values pure ice clouds. The spectral slope ice index I S and the PCA ice index I P are found to be strongly sensitive to the effective diameter of the ice crystals present in the cloud. Therefore, the identification of mixed-phase Correspondence to: A. Ehrlich (ehrlichA@uni-mainz.de) clouds requires a priori knowledge of the ice crystal dimension. The reflectance-albedo ice index I A is mainly dominated by the uppermost cloud layer (τ <1.5). Therefore, typical boundary-layer mixed-phase clouds with a liquid cloud top layer will be identified as pure liquid water clouds. All three methods were applied to measurements above a cloud field observed during ASTAR 2007. The comparison with independent in situ microphysical measurements shows the ability of the three approaches to identify the ice phase in Arctic boundary-layer clouds.

The SAMUM field campaign in southern Morocco in May/June 2006 provides valuable data to study the emission, and the horizontal and vertical transports of mineral dust in the Northern Sahara. Radiosonde and lidar observations show differential advection of air masses with different characteristics during stable nighttime conditions and up to 5-km deep vertical mixing in the strongly convective boundary layer during the day. Lagrangian and synoptic analyses of selected dust periods point to a topographic channel from western Tunisia to central Algeria as a dust source region. Significant emission events are related to cold surges from the Mediterranean in association with eastward passing upper-level waves and lee cyclogeneses south of the Atlas Mountains. Other relevant events are local emissions under a distinct cutoff low over northwestern Africa and gust fronts associated with dry thunderstorms over the Malian and Algerian Sahara. The latter are badly represented in analyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and in a regional dust model, most likely due to problems with moist convective dynamics and a lack of observations in this region. This aspect needs further study. The meteorological source identification is consistent with estimates of optical and mineralogical properties of dust samples.

Published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported LicenseLifting of dust particles by dust devils and convective plumes may significantly contribute to the global mineral dust budget. During the Saharan Mineral Dust Experiment (SAMUM) in May-June 2006 vertical profiling of dusty plumes was performed for the first time. Polarization lidar observations taken at Ouarzazate (30.9 degrees N, 6.9 degrees W, 1133 m height above sea level) are analyzed. Two cases with typical and vigorous formation of convective plumes and statistical results of 5 d are discussed. The majority of observed convective plumes have diameters on order of 100-400 m. Most of the plumes (typically 50-95%) show top heights <1 km or 0.3DLH with the Saharan dust layer height DLH of typically 3-4 km. Height-to-diameter ratio is mostly 2-10. Maximum plume top height ranges from 1.1 to 2.9 km on the 5 d. 5-26 isolated plumes and clusters of plumes per hour were detected. A low dust optical depth (<0.3) favours plume evolution. Observed surface, 1 and 2-m air temperatures indicate that a difference of 17-20 K between surface and 2-m air temperature and of 0.9-1 K between the 1 and 2-m temperatures are required before convective plumes develop. Favourable horizontal wind speeds are 2-7 m s(-1)

Abstract. The CARRIBA (Cloud, Aerosol, Radiation and tuRbulence in the trade wInd regime over BArbados) project, focused on high resolution and collocated measurements of thermodynamic, turbulent, microphysical, and radiative properties of trade wind cumuli over Barbados, is introduced. The project is based on two one-month field campaigns in November 2010 (climatic wet season) and April 2011 (climatic dry season). Observations are based on helicopterborne and ground-based measurements in an area of 100 km 2 off the coast of Barbados. CARRIBA is accompanied by long-term observations at the Barbados Cloud Observatory located at the East coast of Barbados since early in 2010 and which provides a longer-term context for the CARRIBA measurements. The deployed instrumentation and sampling strategy are presented together with a classification of the meteorological conditions. The two campaigns were influenced by different air masses advected from the Caribbean area, the Atlantic Ocean, and the African continent which led to distinct aerosol conditions. Pristine conditions with low aerosol particle number concentrations of ∼100 cm 3 were alternating with periods influenced by Saharan dust or aerosol from biomass burning resulting in comparably high number concentrations of ∼ 500 cm 3 . The biomass burning aerosol was originating from both the Caribbean area and Africa. The shallow cumulus clouds responded to the different aerosol conditions with a wide range of mean droplet sizes and number concentrations. Two days with different aerosol and cloud microphysical properties but almost identical meteorological conditions have been analyzed in detail. The differences in the droplet number concentration and droplet sizes appear not to show any significant change for turbulent cloud mixing, but the relative roles of droplet inertia and sedimentation in initiating coalescence, as well as the cloud reflectivity, do change substantially.

A B S T R A C T Coincident observations made over the Moroccan desert during the Sahara mineral dust experiment (SAMUM) 2006 field campaign are used both to validate aerosol amount and type retrieved from multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer (MISR) observations, and to place the suborbital aerosol measurements into the satellite's larger regional context. On three moderately dusty days during which coincident observations were made, MISR mid-visible aerosol optical thickness (AOT) agrees with field measurements point-by-point to within 0.05-0.1. This is about as well as can be expected given spatial sampling differences; the space-based observations capture AOT trends and variability over an extended region. The field data also validate MISR's ability to distinguish and to map aerosol air masses, from the combination of retrieved constraints on particle size, shape and single-scattering albedo. For the three study days, the satellite observations (1) highlight regional gradients in the mix of dust and background spherical particles, (2) identify a dust plume most likely part of a density flow and (3) show an aerosol air mass containing a higher proportion of small, spherical particles than the surroundings, that appears to be aerosol pollution transported from several thousand kilometres away.