Review of Aerosol–Cloud Interactions: Mechanisms, Significance, and Challenges

Abstract Over the past decade, the number of studies that investigate aerosol–cloud interactions has increased considerably. Although tremendous progress has been made to improve the understanding of basic physical mechanisms of aerosol–cloud interactions and reduce their uncertainties in climate forcing, there is still poor understanding of 1) some of the mechanisms that interact with each other over multiple spatial and temporal scales, 2) the feedbacks between microphysical and dynamical processes and between local-scale processes and large-scale circulations, and 3) the significance of cloud–aerosol interactions on weather systems as well as regional and global climate. This review focuses on recent…