Formation of highly porous aerosol particles by atmospheric freeze-drying in ice clouds.

ABSTRACT: The cycling of atmospheric aerosols through clouds can change their chemical and physical properties and thus modify how aerosols affect cloud microphysics and, subsequently, precipitation and climate. Current knowledge about aerosol processing by clouds is rather limited to chemical reactions within water droplets in warm low-altitude clouds. However, in cold high-altitude cirrus clouds and anvils of high convective clouds in the tropics and midlatitudes, humidified aerosols freeze to form ice, which upon exposure to subsaturation conditions with respect to ice can sublimate, leaving behind residual modified aerosols. This freeze-drying process can occur in various types of clouds. Here we simulate an atmospheric freeze-drying cycle of aerosols in laboratory experiments using proxies for

SUBMITTER: Adler G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3870685 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature