Atmospheric science

Summary

Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of atmospheric changes (both long and short-term) that define average climates and their change over time, due to both natural and anthropogenic climate variability. Aeronomy is the study of the upper layers of the atmosphere, where dissociation and ionization are important. Atmospheric science has been extended to the field of planetary science and the study of the atmospheres of the planets and natural satellites of the Solar System. Experimental instruments used in atmospheric science include satellites, rocketsondes, radiosondes, weather balloons, radars, and lasers. The term aerology (from Greek ἀήρ, aēr, "air"; and -λογία, -logia) is sometimes used as an alternative term for the study of Earth's atmosphere; in other definitions, aerology

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_science

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Stochastic Super-Resolution for Downscaling Time-Evolving Atmospheric Fields With a Generative Adversarial Network

Alexis Berne, Jussi Sakari Leinonen, Daniele Nerini

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have been recently adopted for super-resolution, an application closely related to what is referred to as "downscaling'' in the atmospheric sciences: improving the spatial resolution of low-resolution images. The ability of conditional GANs to generate an ensemble of solutions for a given input lends itself naturally to stochastic downscaling, but the stochastic nature of GANs is not usually considered in super-resolution applications. Here, we introduce a recurrent, stochastic super-resolution GAN that can generate ensembles of time-evolving high-resolution atmospheric fields for an input consisting of a low-resolution sequence of images of the same field. We test the GAN using two data sets: one consisting of radar-measured precipitation from Switzerland; the other of cloud optical thickness derived from the Geostationary Earth Observing Satellite 16 (GOES-16). We find that the GAN can generate realistic, temporally consistent super-resolution sequences for both data sets. The statistical properties of the generated ensemble are analyzed using rank statistics, a method adapted from ensemble weather forecasting; these analyses indicate that the GAN produces close to the correct amount of variability in its outputs. As the GAN generator is fully convolutional, it can be applied after training to input images larger than the images used to train it. It is also able to generate time series much longer than the training sequences, as demonstrated by applying the generator to a three-month data set of the precipitation radar data. The source code to our GAN is available at https://github.com/jleinonen/downscaling-rnn-gan.

2020

This study characterizes single-particle aerosol composition from filters collected during the ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES) and CLoud-Aerosol-Radiation Interaction and Forcing: Year 2017 (CLARIFY-2017) campaigns. In particular the study describes aged biomass burning aerosol (BBA), its interaction with the marine boundary layer and the influence of biomass burning (BB) air on marine aerosol. The study finds evidence of BBA influenced by marine boundary layer processing as well as sea salt influenced by BB air. Secondary chloride aerosols were observed in clean marine air as well as in BB-influenced air in the free troposphere. Higher-volatility organic aerosol appears to be associated with increased age of biomass burning plumes, and photolysis or oxidation may be a mechanism for the apparent increased volatility. Aqueous processing and interaction with the marine boundary layer air may be a mechanism for the presence of sodium on many aged potassium salts. By number, biomass burning potassium salts and modified sea salts are the most observed particles on filter samples. The most commonly observed BC coatings are inorganic salts. These results suggest that atmospheric processes such as photolysis, oxidation and cloud processing are key drivers in the elemental composition and morphology of aged BBA. Fresh BBA inorganic salt content, as it has an important role in the particles' ability to uptake water, may be a key driver in how aqueous processing and atmospheric aging proceed.

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2022

Flowing Gas Experiments Reveal Mechanistic Details of Interfacial Reactions on a Molecular Level at Knudsen Flow Conditions

Riccardo Iannarelli, Christian Ludwig, Michel Rossi

Knudsen flow experiments and its interpretation in terms of adsorption/desorption kinetics as well as quantitative uptake on substrates of interest is presented together with the description of critical design parameters of the Knudsen Flow Reactor (KFR). Hitherto focused almost exclusively on the uptake phase exposing a virgin substrate to interacting gases, we now extend the experiment and its interpretation to the desorption phase at ambient temperature. We present analytical expressions for different experimental situations in terms of adsorption (ka), desorption (kd) and effusion (ke) rate constants. The measurement of kd leads to surface residence times (1/kd) obtained under the same experimental conditions as the uptake (ka) that results in the determination of the Langmuir equilibrium constant KL = ka/kd. We emphasize the interaction of semivolatile organic probe gases and small polar molecules with amorphous carbon and mineral dust materials at ambient temperatures. The latter leads to a molecular characterization scheme based on the use of up to ten different reactive probe gases. After saturation of the uptake of each probe gas this results in a reactivity map of the interface. Several examples are used to underline the broad applicability of the technique such as the silver/air (Ag) interface and the reactivity of TiO2 materials towards uptake of CO2 and CH3OH. Following characterization of several types of amorphous carbon a model incorporating several structural elements in agreement with the reactive gas titration is proposed. For instance, an interface that is at the same time weakly basic and strongly reducing is composed of pyrones and hydroquinones whose simultaneous occurrence leads to stable free radicals that may play a role in atmospheric chemistry (EPFR). The question is raised what makes an interface hydrophobic in terms of surface functional groups when interacting with small polar molecules such as H2O(D2O), HCl, NO2 and NH2OH. Multidiagnostic studies of heterogeneous reactions are enabled using stirred-flow reactors (SRF) that are a logical extension of the KFR approach thus relaxing the Knudsen flow requirements. Previous work using SRF on low-temperature substrates such as H2O ices is highlighted that may be of interest to the exoplanetary and space sciences community.

2022

Flowing Gas Experiments Reveal Mechanistic Details of Interfacial Reactions on a Molecular Level at Knudsen Flow Conditions

Riccardo Iannarelli, Christian Ludwig, Michel Rossi

2022