ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-8-2833-2008 Observations of shallow convective clouds generated by solar heating of dark smoke plumes Klüser L. 1 Rosenfeld D. 2 Macke A. 3 Holzer-Popp T. 1 German Aerospace Center (DLR), German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD), Weßling, Germany Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Leibniz-Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany 29 05 2008 8 10 2833 2840 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/2833/2008/acp-8-2833-2008.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/2833/2008/acp-8-2833-2008.pdf

The SEVIRI instrument on the Meteosat Second Generation satellite with both fine spatial and temporal resolution allows to detect and follow the dynamics of fast developing meteorological events like spreading smoke plumes and the lifecycles of convective clouds. Smoke plumes have the ability to change the atmospheric heat content due to absorption and reduced reflection of solar radiation. By these means they can trigger formation of shallow convective clouds at their edge. A heavy smoke plume emerging from burning Lebanese oil tanks and spreading over adjacent deserts on 17 July 2006 has been observed as an example of such an effect. This study suggests a physical explanation of the observed convection along the edge of the smoke plume, namely the strong thermal contrast resulting from solar heating of the smoke layer.

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