• Energy Research

An overview is presented of airborne systems for in situ measurements of aerosol particles, clouds and radiation that are currently in use on research aircraft around the world. Description of the technology is at a level sufficient for introducing the basic principles of operation and an extensive list of references for further reading is given. A number of newer instruments that implement emerging technology are described and the review concludes with a description of some of the most important measurement challenges that remain. This overview is a synthesis of material from a reference book that is currently in preparation and that will be published in 2012 by Wiley.

Abstract Ice concentrations in orographic wave clouds at temperatures between −24° and −29°C were shown to be related to aerosol characteristics in nearby clear air during five research flights over the Rocky Mountains. When clouds with influence from colder temperatures were excluded from the dataset, mean ice nuclei and cloud ice number concentrations were very low, on the order of 1–5 L−1. In this environment, ice number concentrations were found to be significantly correlated with the number concentration of larger particles, those larger than both 0.1- and 0.5-μm diameter. A variety of complementary techniques was used to measure aerosol size distributions and chemical composition. Strong correlations were also observed between ice concentrations and the number concentrations of soot and biomass-burning aerosols. Ice nuclei concentrations directly measured in biomass-burning plumes were the highest detected during the project. Taken together, this evidence indicates a potential role for biomass-burning aerosols in ice formation, particularly in regions with relatively low concentrations of other ice nucleating aerosols.

Abstract During the Ice in Clouds Experiment–Layer Clouds (ICE-L), aged biomass-burning particles were identified within two orographic wave cloud regions over Wyoming using single-particle mass spectrometry and electron microscopy. Using a suite of instrumentation, particle chemistry was characterized in tandem with cloud microphysics. The aged biomass-burning particles comprised ∼30%–40% by number of the 0.1–1.0-μm clear-air particles and were composed of potassium, organic carbon, elemental carbon, and sulfate. Aerosol mass spectrometry measurements suggested these cloud-processed particles were predominantly sulfate by mass. The first cloud region sampled was characterized by primarily homogeneously nucleated ice particles formed at temperatures near −40°C. The second cloud period was characterized by high cloud droplet concentrations (∼150–300 cm−3) and lower heterogeneously nucleated ice concentrations (7–18 L−1) at cloud temperatures of −24° to −25°C. As expected for the observed particle chemistry and dynamics of the observed wave clouds, few significant differences were observed between the clear-air particles and cloud residues. However, suggestive of a possible heterogeneous nucleation mechanism within the first cloud region, ice residues showed enrichments in the number fractions of soot and mass fractions of black carbon, measured by a single-particle mass spectrometer and a single-particle soot photometer, respectively. In addition, enrichment of biomass-burning particles internally mixed with oxalic acid in both the homogeneously nucleated ice and cloud droplets compared to clear air suggests either preferential activation as cloud condensation nuclei or aqueous phase cloud processing.