Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1479
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1479
22 May 2024
 | 22 May 2024

Weak liquid water path response in ship tracks

Anna Tippett, Edward Gryspeerdt, Peter Manshausen, Philip Stier, and Tristan W. P. Smith

Abstract. The assessment of aerosol-cloud interactions remains a major source of uncertainty in understanding climate change, partly due to the difficulty in making accurate observations of aerosol impacts on clouds. Ships can release large numbers of aerosols that serve as cloud condensation nuclei, which can create artificially brightened clouds known as ship tracks. These aerosol emissions offer a "natural'', or "opportunistic'', experiment to explore aerosol effects on clouds while disentangling meteorological influences. Utilising ship positions and reanalysis winds, we predict ship track locations, collocating them with satellite data to depict the temporal evolution of cloud properties after an aerosol perturbation. Repeating our analysis for a null experiment does not necessarily recover zero signal as expected, but instead reveals subtleties between different null experiment methodologies. This study uncovers a systematic bias in prior ship track research, due to the assumption that background gradients will, on average, be linear. We correct for this bias, which is linked to the correlation between wind fields and cloud properties, to reveal the true ship track response.

We find that the liquid water path (LWP) response after an aerosol pertubation is weak on average, once this bias is corrected for. This has important implications for estimates of radiative forcings due to LWP adjustments, as previous responses in unstable cases were overestimated. A noticeable LWP response is only recovered in specific cases, such as marine stratocumulus clouds, where a positive LWP response is found in precipitating or clean clouds. This work highlights subtleties in the analysis of isolated opportunistic experiments, reconciling differences in the LWP response to aerosols reported in previous studies.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
Anna Tippett, Edward Gryspeerdt, Peter Manshausen, Philip Stier, and Tristan W. P. Smith

Status: final response (author comments only)

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1479', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Jun 2024
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1479', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Jun 2024
  • AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1479', Anna Tippett, 28 Sep 2024
Anna Tippett, Edward Gryspeerdt, Peter Manshausen, Philip Stier, and Tristan W. P. Smith
Anna Tippett, Edward Gryspeerdt, Peter Manshausen, Philip Stier, and Tristan W. P. Smith

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Ship tracks are the phenomenon of lines of enhanced cloud reflectivity visible from space that are caused by the particulate emissions of shipping vessels. The emissions cause cloud droplets to become smaller, with a more contentious possibility that they increase cloud water by shutting down precipitation, both effects having a cooling effect on the local climate. This study applies a clever new methodology to show that past studies that measured an increase of cloud water were likely erroneous due to a sampling artifact: they assumed ship tracks were randomly oriented where in fact ship tracks align with the winds. This orientation bias was cleverly ascertained by "sailing" ships through the winds and clouds of a different year than the one in which the ship tracks were measured. A climate cooling effect from increased cloud water was still obtained, but one much smaller than described previously. The result implies that ships may not be as effective a geoengineering tool as has previously been assumed.
Short summary
Ship emissions can form artificially brightened clouds, known as ship tracks, and provide us with an opportunity to investigate how aerosols interact with clouds. Previous studies that used ship tracks suggest that clouds can experience large increases in the amount of water (LWP) from aerosols. Here, we show that there is a bias in previous research, and that when we account for this bias, the LWP response to aerosols is much weaker than previously reported.