|
|
Article: AEROSOL EFFECTS IN SNOWFALL-AND BEYOND
- Article from:
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
- Article date:
- October 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright American Meteorological Society Oct 2004. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
Recent observations at a mountaintop observatory in the Rocky Mountains suggest that sulfate aerosols (airborne particulates) have reduced the snowfall amount locally. It is proposed that since pollution aerosols decrease the size of cloud droplets, these smaller cloud droplets cannot be collected as easily by snowflakes that fall through a polluted cloud at temperatures below 0°C. This reduction in the collection or riming rate of snowflakes decreases the size of the snowflakes and thus reduces the snowfall rate.
Now this hypothesis has been tested with general circulation model simulations of preindustrial and present-day climate. The decrease in the riming rate was simulated by ...