Tropical deep convective life cycle: Cb-anvil cloud microphysics from high altitude aircraft observations
Abstract. The case study presented here focusses on the life cycle of clouds in a tropical deep convective system. During the SCOUT-O3 campaign from Darwin, Northern Australia, the Hector storm system has been probed by the Geophysica high altitude aircraft. Clouds were observed by in situ particle probes, a backscatter sonde, and a miniature lidar. Additionally, aerosol number concentrations have been measured. On 30 November 2005 a double flight took place and Hector was probed throughout its life cycle in its developing, mature, and dissipating stage. The two flights were four hours apart and focussed on the anvil region of Hector in altitudes between 10.5 km and 18.8 km (i.e. above 350 K potential temperature). Trajectory calculations and ozone measurements have been used to identify that the same cloud air masses have been probed in both flights. The size distributions derived from the measurements not only show a change with increasing altitude but also with the evolution of Hector. Clearly different aerosol to cloud particle ratios as well as varying ice crystal morphology have been found for the different development stages of Hector, indicating a change in freezing mechanisms. The development phase exhibits the smallest ice particles (up to 300 μm) with a rather uniform morphology. This is indicative for rapid glaciation during Hector's development. Sizes of ice crystals are largest in the mature stage (larger 1.6 mm) and even exceed those of some continental tropical deep convective clouds, also in their number concentrations. The backscatter properties and particle images show a change from frozen droplets in the developing phase to rimed and aggregated particles. The clouds in the dissipating stage have a large vertical extend (roughly 6 km) though optically thin and persist for at least 6 h. This poses a high potential for affecting the tropical tropopause layer background conditions regarding humidity, e.g. through facilitating subvisible cirrus formation, and with this the amount of water vapour that is transported into the stratosphere.