McMichael et al. (2025) Investigation of Ship‐Induced Mesoscale Circulation Mechanics and Aerosol Plume Spreading Rates

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-10-15
• Authors: Lucas A. McMichael, Peter N. Blossey, Robert Wood, Sarah J. Doherty
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl116904

Research Groups

[Not specified in the abstract]

Short Summary

This study employs large-eddy simulations to investigate the physical mechanisms controlling the spreading rate of ship-emitted aerosol plumes in precipitating stratocumulus clouds. It finds that cloud droplet sedimentation and collision-coalescence are the primary drivers of plume buoyancy and horizontal spreading, while the effective radius has a negligible influence.

Objective

• To investigate the roles of collision-coalescence, cloud droplet sedimentation, and droplet effective radius in ship tracks within idealized precipitating stratocumulus cases.
• To quantify the individual and combined effects of these mechanisms on plume buoyancy anomalies and spreading rates.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Cloud-resolving scale, simulating idealized precipitating stratocumulus cases, typically covering domains of several kilometers horizontally and a few kilometers vertically.
• Temporal Scale: Cloud evolution over periods of several hours, characteristic of large-eddy simulations.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Large-eddy simulations (LES).
• Data sources: Idealized synthetic data generated by the large-eddy simulations of precipitating stratocumulus cases.

Main Results

• Cloud droplet sedimentation and collision-coalescence are identified as the primary mechanisms controlling plume buoyancy and horizontal spreading within ship tracks.
• The influence of cloud droplet effective radius on plume buoyancy and spreading is found to be negligible.
• Mesoscale circulations can develop within the ship track even in the absence of precipitation suppression.

Contributions

• Provides a deeper physical understanding of the mechanisms driving variations in ship-emitted aerosol plume spreading rates in low clouds.
• Offers insights that can inform the development of plume-spreading parameterizations in global climate models, relevant for assessing the feasibility of Marine Cloud Brightening.

Funding

[Not specified in the abstract]

Citation

@article{McMichael2025Investigation,
  author = {McMichael, Lucas A. and Blossey, Peter N. and Wood, Robert and Doherty, Sarah J.},
  title = {Investigation of Ship‐Induced Mesoscale Circulation Mechanics and Aerosol Plume Spreading Rates},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl116904},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl116904}
}