Biological and dust aerosols as sources of ice-nucleating particles in the eastern Mediterranean: source apportionment, atmospheric processing and parameterization

Abstract

Aerosol–cloud interactions in mixed-phase clouds (MPCs) are one of the most uncertain drivers of the hydrological cycle and climate change. A synergy of in situ, remote-sensing and modelling experiments were used to determine the source of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) for MPCs at Mount Helmos in the eastern Mediterranean. The influences of boundary layer turbulence, vertical aerosol distributions and meteorological conditions were also examined. When the observation site is in the free troposphere (FT), approximately 1 in ×106 aerosol particles serve as INPs around −25 °C. The INP abundance spans 3 orders of magnitude and increases in the following order: marine aerosols; continental aerosols; and, finally, dust plumes. Biological particles are important INPs observed in continental and marine aerosols, whereas they play a secondary, although important, role during Saharan dust events. Air masses in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) show both enriched INP concentrations and a higher proportion of INPs to total aerosol particles, compared with cases in the FT. The presence of precipitation/clouds enriches INPs in the FT but decreases INPs in the PBL. Additionally, new INP parameterizations are developed that incorporate the ratio of fluorescent-to-nonfluorescent or coarse-to-fine particles and predict >90 % of the observed INPs within an uncertainty range of a factor of 10; these new parameterizations exhibit better performance than current widely used parameterizations and allow ice formation in models to respond to variations in dust and biological particles. The improved parameterizations can help MPC formation simulations in regions with various INP sources or different regions with prevailing INP sources.