Constraining the surface flux of sea spray particles from the Southern Ocean

Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres (2019)

Modelling the shortwave radiation balance over the Southern Ocean region remains a challenge for Earth system models.

To investigate whether this is related to the representation of aerosol-cloud interactions, we compared measurements of the total number concentration of sea spray generated particles within the Southern Ocean region to model predictions thereof. We used source-receptor modelling to calculate the sensitivity of our measurements to upwind surface fluxes.

Comparisons to existing model parameterizations revealed that present model parameterizations led to over-estimations of sea spray concentrations. We show that the parameterization can also be applied globally.