GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L15811, doi:10.
1029/2007GL029606, 2007
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Significant differences in the cloud droplet effective radius between
nonprecipitating and precipitating clouds
Takahisa Kobayashi1
Received 7 February 2007; revised 12 April 2007; accepted 20 June 2007; published 15 August 2007.
[1] We examined the cloud-precipitation interaction by a
combined use of radar and a solar/infrared radiometer
onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).
We found sudden changes in the cloud droplet effective
radius in marine water clouds, and significant differences in
the effective radius between nonprecipitating clouds and
precipitating clouds in which clouds and precipitation
coexist. The largest radius was limited to between 15 and
20 mm for nonprecipitating clouds, whereas it increased
discontinuously to 30 mm for precipitating clouds. Detailed
analysis suggests that the differences are likely due to the
rapid growth of cloud drops into raindrops. The radius in
nonprecipitating clouds indicates that threshold sizes exist
below which precipitation hardly forms. This study revealed
that the threshold sizes are clearly observed and are
consistent on a global scale, which improves our
understanding of the second indirect effects of aerosols.
Citation: Kobayashi, T. (2007), Significant differences in the
cloud droplet effective radius between nonprecipitating and
precipitating clouds, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L15811,
doi:10.1029/2007GL029606.
1. Introduction
[2] The cloud feedback problem is a critical issue to be
solved in climate studies. However, the progress has been
slow [Stephens, 2005] because clouds are a ‘many-body’
process and have mutual relations to aerosols and precipi-
tation. Increases in aerosol concentrations result in a de-
creased drop size and modify the cloud radiative forcing,
which is known as the ‘first indirect effect’ [Breon et al.,
2002]. Decreased drop size may also suppress precipitation,
which is known as the ‘second indirect effect’ [Albrecht,
1989; Rosenfeld, 2000] Precipitation is generated from
cloud drops by condensation and coalescence, which in
turn generates cloud drops by breakup [Kobayashi and
Adachi, 2001], removes cloud drops and controls cloud
amount. The interactions between aerosols and clouds have
been studied extensively using numerical models and
observations with airborne sensors [Asano et al., 1995]
and spaceborne solar and infrared radiometers [Coakley
and Bernstein, 1987]. Despite extensive studies on cloud-
precipitation interactions, our understanding is very limited
because of their complex nature.
[3] One of the key factors for better understanding the
second indirect effect is the threshold size of cloud drops
below which precipitation hardly forms. Rain formation
models have suggested that, during the coalescence stage,
1
Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan.
Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.
0094-8276/07/2007GL029606$05.00
L15811
the growth of cloud drops does not proceed uniformly but
advances in a stepwise manner at a specified size, i.e., is the
threshold size [Houze, 1993]. Cloud drops at the threshold
size grow to raindrops rapidly. In other words, precipitation
is suppressed when cloud drops are reduced to below this
size by increased concentration of aerosols. Models of this
phenomenon have been developed in the last half a
century, although their results are inconsistent [Pruppacher
and Klett, 1997; Khain et al., 2000]. Measurements to
examine the threshold size in real rain are critical for
improving our understanding of the second indirect effect
and developing an accurate parameterization of cloud-
precipitation processes for predicting global warming
[Randall et al., 2003]. In particular, understanding of the
physical processes in low marine stratocumulus clouds is
important because it has strong negative feedback and
small changes in the amount could offset the warming
effects resulting from CO2 doubling [Albrecht, 1989; Randall
et al., 1984]. However, few measurements of the cloud-
precipitation interaction have been made because of limi-
tations in remote sensing techniques.
2. Method
[4] The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)
satellite primarily intends to measure temporal and spatial
variations of precipitation and clouds [Kummerow et al.,
2000; Masunaga et al., 2002]. The TRMM has been
continuously monitoring precipitation since the launch on
November, 1997 and has five sensors, including precipitat-
ing Radar (PR). The PR is a unique spaceborne sensor used
to measure the three-dimensional rain structure with a
horizontal resolution of 5 km at nadir and a swath of
245 km. The vertical resolution is 125 m. The TRMM is
also equipped with a visible and infrared scanner (VIRS) for
measuring clouds, as well as the sea surface temperature and
aerosols. The VIRS has five channels and measures visible
and infrared radiance with a horizontal resolution of 2.4 km
at nadir and a swath of 830 km. Both sensors sample almost
simultaneously and with similar spatial resolutions. Conse-
quently, combined use of the PR and VIRS is well suited for
studies of cloud-precipitation interactions. The orbit has an
inclination of 35° and the observed area is from 35° to
+35° in latitude and 0° to 360° in longitude. We selected the
VIRS data for which the center position of the PR is within
the footprint of the VIRS and made match-up datasets from
data for 11 days in December, 2002 and 10 days in June
2003. The swath of the VIRS is wider than that of the PR.
The VIRS data extending beyond the swath of the PR were
excluded. Ultimately, we generated four global-segmented
datasets, each with data for 5 or 6 days. One segment box
has a 0.5°  0.5° latitude-longitude spatial resolution.
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L15811 KOBAYASHI: SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN DROP SIZE
Figure 1. Sequential plots of the effective radius of cloud
drops derived from two datasets (a) for June and
(b) December. For NPC (black dots), Re is arranged in
order of small optical thickness. The optical thickness is
about 15 at center position of NPC (data no. = 6000) and is
larger than 30 at the boundary of NPC and PRC. For PRC
(red: stratiform, blue: convective), Re is plotted in order of
small near surface rain rate (green line). The near surface
rain rate is estimated from the PR measurements.
Data exist for at least 100 pixels in each grid box. The pixel
for precipitating at the highest rain rate was selected from
100 data. When no precipitating pixels occur in a box, the
pixel for the highest reflection at Ch1 (0.63 mm) was
selected. In the analysis, pixels for which the brightness
temperature at Ch4 (10.8 mm) of VIRS ranged from 273 to
290 K and the brightness temperature difference between
Ch4 and Ch5 (12 mm) was less than 1 K were further-
more selected to remove erroneous data of optically thin,
cold clouds and subpixel clouds [Rosenfeld and Gutman,
1994].
[5] The reflected radiances at Ch1 (0.63mm) and Ch3
(3.75mm) measured with the VIRS were used to derive the
optical thicknesses and cloud droplet effective radius (Re)
of clouds near the cloud tops [Han et al., 1994; Nakajima and
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L15811
Nakajima, 1995]. The retrieval is based on the difference of
water absorbing characteristics between solar reflectance at
Ch1 and Ch3. Ch3 includes contributions of thermal emis-
sions from the atmosphere and ground surface. The unde-
sired thermal emissions from the cloud tops were removed
from the measured radiance at Ch3. The cloud top temper-
ature was determined from the Ch4 radiance using LOW-
TRAN-7 [Kneizys et al., 1988] assuming the tropical model
for the atmosphere above the cloud top. This assumption
leads to some error in the derived Re. However, a difference
of 4 K between the model and the actual temperature profile
causes an error of less than 0.7mm in the retrieved Re [Han
et al., 1994; Kawamoto et al., 2001]. Use of the midlatitude
summer model for the atmosphere above the cloud top
instead of the tropical model results in a difference of
0.8 mm in the mean Re. Since we applied the method to
limited regions of latitude, this error is not serious. We
ignored the thermal emission from the ground surface
because we examined optically thick clouds whose optical
thicknesses are mostly (7080%) larger than 10 [King,
1987].
3. Results
[6] Figure 1 shows sequential plots of Re for nonpreci-
pitating clouds (NPC: black dots) and precipitating clouds
(PRC: red: stratiform, blue: convective) derived from the
datasets for June (Figure 1a) and December (Figure 1b). The
near-surface rain rate is also plotted (green line) and was
estimated from the reflectivity factor at altitudes of around
1 to 2 km. A very interesting feature is the sudden change in
the Re of PRC: a discrete stepwise increase in the largest Re
for PRC occurs compared to that for NPC. For NPC, most
drops are less than 20 mm in Re, whereas the largest drop
size increases to 30 mm for PRC. Significant increases are
observed even for clouds with weak rain. This Re jump
suggests that drops larger than a threshold size of 15 to 20 mm
are unstable and have a short life in NPC. These drops grow
into raindrops or dissipate very quickly. The effective radius
of 20 mm corresponds to the mode radius of 14 mm for the
log-normal drop size distribution with a variance of 1.42.
Similar results have been obtained from measurements of
urban plumes [Rosenfeld, 2000]. Raindrop formation mod-
els suggest that raindrops are formed very quickly from
initial cloud drops with a mean size of 13 mm while they are
formed very slowly from drops of 9 mm [Frossmann et al.,
1985]. In addition, the gravity-induced collision rate of
cloud drops increases drastically for a drop radius larger
than 20 mm [Jonas, 1996]. These model results suggest that
drops larger than the threshold size are absent for NPC
because these large drops grow into raindrops very quickly
and the most intense turbulence is observed near cloud tops.
Turbulent flow has a significant effect on drop growth due
to collisions between drops [Vaillancourt and Yau, 2000].
Cloud drops at the threshold size are in the transition stage
to drizzle and raindrops. Since Figure 1 contains various
stages of precipitation, the Re jump also suggests that the
drops larger than the threshold disappear quickly in the rain
dissipating process as well as in the growth stage. Unlike
large drops, sudden decreases in the number of small drops
appear for PRC. Precipitation may remove cloud drops
smaller than 10 mm.
L15811 KOBAYASHI: SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN DROP SIZE
Figure 2. Sequential plots of the brightness temperature of
clouds from two datasets for June. The near surface rain rate
is plotted by solid line (right axis).
[7] We may have observed a very thin, high-altitude
cirrus clouds overlying lower water clouds. In retrieving
Re from space, the effects of cirrus contamination cannot be
neglected. To avoid cirrus contamination, we selected
clouds with a brightness temperature Bt > 273K. This
criterion may not enough to avoid cirrus contamination.
Therefore, we derived Re using Bt > 280 K and compared it
to the Re for Bt > 273 K [Han et al., 1994]. Essentially
similar results were obtained which suggests that cirrus
contamination is likely removed using the first criterion.
The largest size for PRC may be too small even for the
warm water clouds that we analyzed. This may have been
due to the observational limit.
[8] Figure 2 shows sequential plots of the brightness
temperature of clouds. The near surface rain rate is also
plotted (solid line: right axis). The brightness temperatures
for PRC are slightly lower than those for nonprecipitating
clouds. However, no significant differences are observed in
contrast to Figure 1. A larger Re is often observed for higher
clouds. Figure 2 suggests that the Re jump is not due to the
effects of cloud height.
[9] Figure 3 shows the frequency distributions of Re for
NPC (hatched) and PRC (black) estimated from the two
datasets for June. The distributions are normalized so that
the total amount of Re data is equal for both NPC and PRC.
As expected from Figure 1, significant differences occur
between NPC and PRC. For NPC, the distribution is
relatively narrow with a mode radius of 13 mm. Significant
decreases in the frequency appear at Re > 15 mm. Analysis
of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project
[Han et al., 1994] has also shown that cases with Re >
10– 20 mm decrease rapidly. For PRC, a wider distribution
is observed with the mode radius of 17 mm. Almost no cases
are found at Re < 10 mm. Similar results have been obtained
from model calculations [Lohmann et al., 2000].
[10] Significant differences in the Re between NPC and
PRC in Figures 1 and 3 suggest that the cloud drop radius
mostly determines the transition from cloud droplets to
raindrops. Therefore, an accurate estimation of the threshold
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L15811
radius is crucial for improving our understanding of the
second indirect effect [Rotstayn, 1999]. However, variation
exists in the threshold effective radius as shown in Figure 1.
Theoretical studies suggest that factors other than effective
radius (e.g., droplet concentration, liquid water content, and
spectral shape of the cloud droplet size distribution) also
affect the transition from cloud droplets to raindrops [Liu
and Daum, 2004; Liu et al., 2005, 2006]. The TRMM data
here include various growing/dissipating stages of cloud,
which results in variation in these parameters and conse-
quently in the threshold size. The variation also results in an
overlap between the Re frequency distributions for NPC and
PRC as shown in Figures 1 and 2. Liu and Daum [2004]
derived the threshold radius as a function of LWC and N
(total number of cloud drops). The relation suggests the
threshold Re ranges from 15 to 20 mm depending on N,
LWC and the drop collection efficiency. Aircraft observa-
tions also suggest that drizzle LWC increases rapidly for
Re > 16mm [Gerber, 1996]. These results are similar to our
results.
4. Conclusions
[11] We derived cloud drop effective size by a combined
use of the PR and VIRS onboard the TRMM satellite.
Significant differences in cloud drop effective sizes were
found between precipitating and nonprecipitating clouds.
The maximum drop size was more than 30 mm for precip-
itating clouds but 20 mm for nonprecipitating clouds. This
Re jump indicates that an Re of 15 to 20 mm is the threshold
below which precipitation little forms. Precipitating clouds
with an Re larger than the threshold value are widely
distributed throughout the observation area of the TRMM
and are probably consistent with water clouds on a global
scale. This fact is useful for examining the extent to which
the aerosol second indirect effect occurs.
Figure 3. Normalized frequency distributions of Re for
NPC (hatched) and PRC (solid). Pixels of PRC, which is
about one third of those of NPC in number, are plotted by
multiplied a factor three so that number of pixels are equal
for NPC and PRC.
L15811 KOBAYASHI: SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN DROP SIZE
[12] Acknowledgments. This study is partly supported by Grant-in
Aids for Scientific Research 18540437, Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science. The TRMM data were provided by the Japan Aerospace Explo-
ration Agency.
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T. Kobayashi, Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba, 305-0052,
Japan. (kobay@mri-jma.go.jp)