Relations between marine biogeochemical indices and cloud properties over the Arabian Sea

Knowledge of relations among ocean biogeochemical and cloud properties will help to plan experiments necessary to understand the mechanisms and processes underlying the links between ocean and atmosphere interactions. Here, we explored the associations between ocean biogeochemical and cloud properties in a region that seasonally experiences polluted and pristine atmospheric conditions in winter and summer, respectively. The implications of ocean surface chlorophyll-a and biogeochemical fluxes (sea salt, dimethyl sulphide and organic fraction in sea spray) to cloud properties (cloud effective radii (Re), cloud optical thickness, and cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC)) were studied using MODIS (Terra, Collection 6, L3) monthly data from 2001 to 2015 along with reanalysis information. We have adopted a climatological averaging approach in time (monthly, seasonal and annual) and space (coastal, open and total (basin) Arabian Sea). This approach was used to minimize incompatibility, if any, between ocean and cloud properties arising from spatio-temporal lags due to different dynamics in the respective boundary layers. The trends in monthly means suggest decreases in chlorophyll-a and CDNC, while Re increased over the Arabian Sea basin during 2001–2015. Variability at the basin scale (expressed as standard deviation in each month, SD) exceeded mean values of respective months for chlorophyll-a, whereas it was nearly half of the mean values for CDNC. An increase in Re seems facilitated more during warmer 2011–2015 than in the 2001–2010 period, which coincided with the decrease in CDNC. Fifteen-year monthly mean climatologies suggest considerable associations among ocean biogeochemical indices and cloud properties, which is more conspicuous during summer monsoon. Increase in sea salt flux appears to account for the higher values of Re in June–July over the basin due to strong monsoon wind. Inverse relations between chlorophyll-a and Re are indicative of smaller droplets that resulted from new particles formed from and/or facilitated by marine biogeochemical emissions. Decline in new particle production due to decrease in surface chlorophyll-a and the growth of particles facilitated by increase in warming, seem responsible for increase in Re and decrease in CDNC from 2001 to 2015. Using chlorophyll-a as the main proxy for ocean biogeochemical indices, we demonstrated that connections between ocean biogeochemistry and clouds are sustained in both small and large scales in space and time over the Arabian Sea.