Observational Constraints Suggest a Smaller Effective Radiative Forcing from Aerosol-Cloud Interactions (Data)

This document describes data files containing variables calculated in the analysis presented in "Observational Constraints Suggest a Smaller Effective Radiative Forcing from Aerosol-Cloud Interactions" by Park et al. (2024).

All variables are limited to the 60°S–60°N latitude band, focusing primarily on ocean regions, and the data spans monthly records from 2003 to 2019.

activation_rate.nc: This file contains the activation rate of cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) in response to aerosol proxies used in the study, specifically sulfate aerosol mass concentration (SO₄) from MERRA-2 reanalysis data and aerosol index (AI) from MODIS data. The rate is calculated using a multi-linear regression that includes six environmental factors (SST, EIS, Tadv, RH700, W700, and WS) to account for their influence.

susceptibility_with_activation.nc: This file contains the susceptibility of the non-obscured low-cloud radiative effect (CRE_lcld) to aerosol concentrations, either SO₄ or AI. The activation rate is explicitly incorporated into the equation, as detailed in Equation (2) of the paper. This is also calculated using a multi-linear regression that includes six environmental factors to account for their influence.

susceptibility_without_activation.nc: This file provides the susceptibility of the non-obscured low-cloud radiative effect (CRE_lcld) to aerosol concentrations, either SO₄ or AI, without incorporating the activation rate, as defined in Equation (1) of the paper. This is also calculated using a multi-linear regression that includes six environmental factors to account for their influence.

All other data files used in the paper can be downloaded from their respective websites (see the paper's "Data availability" section).