Meinrat
O.
Andreae, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, andreae@mpch-mainz.mpg.de
(Presenting)
Paulo
Artaxo, Univ. Sao Paulo, artaxo@uspif.if.usp.br
Daniel
Rosenfeld, Hebrew University, daniel@vms.huji.ac.il
Maria Assução
Faus da
Silva Dias, Univ. Sao Paulo, CPTEC, assuncao@cptec.inpe.br
Alexandre
Araújo
Costa, UECE, alexandre.costa@yale.edu
José
Carlos Parente
Oliveira, UFC, parente@fisica.ufc.br
Willy
Maenhaut, Univ. Gent, Willy.Maenhaut@ugent.be
Magda
Claeys, Univ. Antwerp, claeys@uia.ua.ac.be
Sandro
Fuzzi, ISAC, s.fuzzi@isac.cnr.it
Erik
Swietlick, Univ. Lund, erik.swietlicki@pixe.lth.se
Olga
L.
Mayol-Bracero, Univ. Puerto Rico, omayol@sunites.upr.clu.edu
Luciana
Vanni
Gatti, IPEN, lvgatti@net.ipen.br
Karla
M
Longo, CPTEC, longo@cptec.inpe.br
Yinon
Rudich, Weizmann Inst., yinon@wisemail.weizmann.ac.il
Research over the past decade has confirmed and highlighted the importance of a number of aerosol effects on climate, both through direct interaction of the aerosol with solar and terrestrial radiation, and via perturbations of cloud properties and convective dynamics. In this presentation, I will highlight recent results from a study of the effect of biomass smoke on tropical clouds and the consequences for regional and global climate. We investigated the emission of smoke from biomass burning, its regional distribution, and its effects on cloud microphysics during the LBA-SMOCC experiment in Amazonia, September-October 2002. The campaign consisted of airborne, ground-based, remote-sensing, and modeling components. Two instrumented aircraft investigated trace gases, aerosol properties and cloud microphysics across a large region that comprised highly polluted and essentially pristine airmasses. At a ground site, we made continuous measurements of trace gases and a large suite of aerosol properties, and collected samples for laboratory analysis. Measurements spanned from the peak of the burning season, with high smoke concentrations, to fairly clean conditions in the early rainy season.
We found high loadings of smoke particles and pyrogenic trace gases in the boundary layer over vast reaches of Amazonia, and evidence for efficient vertical transport of smoke into the free troposphere. Smoke aerosols had pronounced effects on the radiation budget, cloud microphysics and precipitation formation over Amazonia, as show by in-situ measurements and remote sensing data. These effects are likely to perturb convective dynamics, radiative flux, and atmospheric composition on regional to global scales.