Globally, our limited understanding of how aerosol particles produced by natural and anthropogenic activities interact with clouds restricts our ability to represent these processes well in numerical models. In the Arctic, these poorly-constrained interactions hinder our attempts to make concrete predictions of the future surface energy budget. In particular, it is not well understood how increasing industrialisation within the Arctic circle and transport from the polluted mid-latitudes may affect how Arctic clouds interact with solar and terrestrial radiation.
For this reason, the PACES (air Pollution in the Arctic: Climate, Environment, and Societies) initiative proposed the QuIESCENT Arctic workshop (Quantifying the Indirect Effect: from Sources to Climate Effects of Natural and Transported aerosol in the Arctic). On 4-5 April 2019, 45 researchers working on Arctic aerosol-cloud interactions convened at the British Antarctic Survey (Cambridge, UK) for this IASC co-sponsored workshop to identify our key knowledge gaps and discuss our research priorities going forward. Through discussions, we identified the need to improve communication between the observing and modelling communities and to carry momentum forward to future workshops, activities, and projects targeting this topic. To this end, we will write a position paper on Arctic aerosol-cloud interactions in the near future to emphasise these issues to the science community.
Contacts:
Gillian Young (University of Leeds, UK)
Jean-Christophe Raut (LATMOS, France)
Jo Browse (University of Exeter, UK)
Gijs de Boer (CIRES, University of Colorado Boulder, USA)