Understanding the Extratropical Liquid Water Path Feedback in Mixed-Phase Clouds with an Idealized Global Climate Model

A negative shortwave cloud feedback associated with higher extratropical liquid water content in mixed-phase clouds is a common feature of global warming simulations, and multiple mechanisms have been hypothesized. A set of process-level experiments performed with an idealized global climate model (a dynamical core with passive water and cloud tracers and full Rotstayn-Klein single-moment microphysics) show that the common picture of the liquid water path (LWP) feedback in mixed-phase clouds being controlled by the amount of ice susceptible to phase change is not robust. Dynamic condensate processes—rather than static phase partitioning—directly change with warming, with varied impacts on liquid and ice amounts. Here, three principal mechanisms are responsible for the LWP response, namely higher adiabatic cloud water content, weaker liquid-to-ice conversion through the Bergeron-Findeisen process, and faster melting of ice and snow to rain. Only melting is accompanied by a substantial loss of ice, while the adiabatic cloud water content increase gives rise to a net increase in ice water path (IWP) such that total cloud water also increases without an accompanying decrease in precipitation efficiency. Perturbed parameter experiments with a wide range of climatological LWP and IWP demonstrate a strong dependence of the LWP feedback on the climatological LWP and independence from the climatological IWP and supercooled liquid fraction. This idealized setup allows for a clean isolation of mechanisms and paints a more nuanced picture of the extratropical mixed-phase cloud water feedback than simple phase change.

Ice nucleating particles in the Canadian High Arctic during the fall with implications for climate feedback mechanisms in the region

Ice nucleating particles (INPs) are a small subset of atmospheric particles that can initiate the formation of ice in mixed-phase clouds. Here we report concentrations of INPs during October and...

Mexican agricultural soil dust as a source of ice nucleating particles

Agricultural soil erosion, both mechanical and eolic, may impact cloud processes as some aerosol particles are able to facilitate ice crystals formation. Given the large agricultural sector in Mexico, this study investigates the ice nucleating abilities of agricultural dust collected at different sites and generated in the laboratory. The immersion freezing mechanism of ice nucleation was simulated in the laboratory via the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)- Micro Orifice Uniform Deposit Impactor (MOUDI)-Droplet freezing technique (DFT) (UNAM-MOUDI-DFT). The results show that agricultural dust from the Mexican territory promote ice formation in a temperature range from −11.8 ºC to −34.5 ºC, with ice nucleating particle (INP) concentrations between 0.11 L−1 and 41.8 L−1. Furthermore, aerosol samples generated in the laboratory are more efficient than those collected in the field, with T50 values (i.e., the temperature at which 50 % of the droplets freeze) higher by more than 2.9 ºC. The mineralogical analysis indicated a high concentration of feldspars i.e., K-feldspar and plagioclase (> 40 %) in most of the aerosol and soil samples, with K-feldspar significantly correlated with the T50 of particles with sizes between 1.8 µm and 3.2 µm. Similarly, the organic carbon (OC) was correlated with the efficiency of aerosol samples from 3.2 µm to 5.6 µm and 1.0 µm to 1.8 µm. Finally, a decrease in the efficiency as INPs, after heating the samples at 300 ºC for 2 h, evidenced that the organic matter from agricultural soils can influence the role of INPs in mixed-phase clouds.

Exploring the representation of clouds and humidity in the Arctic with cloud-resolving simulations using ICON-LEM

<p>The discussions around Arctic Amplification have led to extensive research, as done in the transregional collaboration (AC)³. One focus are the feedback mechanisms that are strengthening or weakening the warming. Several of these feedbacks involve moisture in the atmosphere in all phases. To understand these better we have been running and analysing daily cloud-resolving simulations. We performed these simulations for a region more strongly affected by the warming around Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard), which is challenging due to its diverse surface properties and mountainous surrounding. We have created an outstandingly large data set of several months of these simulations with 600 m resolution, using the Icosahedral non-hydrostatic model in the large-eddy mode (ICON-LEM).</p> <p>To gain some understanding of how well the model can represent such a complex location, we evaluated the performance of the model. For this, we used a range of observations from the measurement super-site located at Ny-Ålesund. This included radiosondes [1], a rain gauge, a microwave radiometer and further processed remote sensing data. Combining the measurements and simulations enables us to provide thorough statistics for different variables connected to clouds and to establish an understanding of how well they are represented.</p> <p>We show that the model is capable of simulating the two distinct flow regimes in the boundary layer and the free troposphere. Further, we found a tendency in the model to misrepresent liquid and mixed-phase clouds as purely ice clouds. Though the water vapour is well captured, we found further steps in the chain towards precipitation formation are insufficiently represented. Through the use of forward simulations and expanded model output, we can continue to get a better picture of possibilities to understand and improve the microphysical processes.</p> <p><em>This work was supported by the</em><em> DFG funded Transregio-project TR 172 “Arctic Amplification </em>(AC)3<em>“.</em></p> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p>[1] M. Maturilli, High resolution radiosonde measurements from station Ny-Ålesund (2017-04 et seq). <em>Alfred</em> <em>Wegener Institute - Research Unit Potsdam, PANGAEA</em>, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.914973 (2020)</p>

No evidence for a productive Hallett-Mossop process so far

<p>Mixed-phase clouds are essential elements in Earth’s weather and climate system. Atmospheric observation of mixed-phase clouds occasionally demonstrated a strong discrepancy between the observed ice particle and ice nucleating particle number concentration of one to four orders of magnitude at modest supercooling [1-3, 5, 7]. Different secondary ice production (SIP) mechanisms have been hypothesized which can increase the total ice particle number concentration by multiplication of primary ice particles and hence might explain the observed discrepancy [2, 4, 6].</p> <p>In this study we focus on SIP as a result of droplet-ice collisions, commonly known as Hallett-Mossop [9] or rime-splintering process. Our main objectives are (i) to quantify secondary ice particles and (ii) to learn more about the underlying physics. Therefore, we develop a new experimental set-up (Ice Droplets splintEring on FreezIng eXperiment, IDEFIX) in which quasi-monodisperse supercooled droplets collide with a fixed ice particle. IDEFIX is designed to simulate atmospheric relevant conditions such as temperature, humidity, impact velocities and collision rates. The riming process is observed with high-speed video microscopy and an infrared measuring system. Further, the produced secondary ice particles are counted via impaction on a supercooled sugar solution. Preliminary results from a first measurement campaign suggest that we observed single SIP events but did not found evidence for a productive Hallett-Mossop process so far.  We plan to continue with rime-splintering experiment in order to gain better statistics and to expand the parameter space (e.g., droplet size distribution).</p> <p>[1] Crosier, J., et al. 2011, DOI: 10.5194/acp-11-257-2011.</p> <p>[2] Field, P.R., et al. 2016, DOI: 10.1175/amsmonographs-d-16-0014.1.</p> <p>[3] Hogan, R.J., et al. 2002, DOI: 10.1256/003590002321042054.</p> <p>[4] Korolev, A. and T. Leisner 2020, DOI: 10.5194/acp-20-11767-2020.</p> <p>[5] Mossop, S.C. 1985, DOI: 10.1175/1520-0477(1985)066<0264:toacoi>2.0.co;2.</p> <p>[6] Sotiropoulou, G., et al. 2020, DOI: 10.5194/acp-20-1301-2020.</p> <p>[7] Taylor, J.W., et al. 2016, DOI: 10.5194/acp-16-799-2016.</p>

Geometrical and Microphysical Properties of Clouds Formed in the Presence of Dust above the Eastern Mediterranean

In this work, collocated lidar–radar observations are used to retrieve the vertical profiles of cloud properties above the Eastern Mediterranean. Measurements were performed in the framework of the PRE-TECT experiment during April 2017 at the Greek atmospheric observatory of Finokalia, Crete. Cloud geometrical and microphysical properties at different altitudes were derived using the Cloudnet target classification algorithm. We found that the variable atmospheric conditions that prevailed above the region during April 2017 resulted in complex cloud structures. Mid-level clouds were observed in 38% of the cases, high or convective clouds in 58% of the cases, and low-level clouds in 2% of the cases. From the observations of cloudy profiles, pure ice phase occurred in 94% of the cases, mixed-phase clouds were observed in 27% of the cases, and liquid clouds were observed in 8.7% of the cases, while Drizzle or rain occurred in 12% of the cases. The significant presence of Mixed-Phase Clouds was observed in all the clouds formed at the top of a dust layer, with three times higher abundance than the mean conditions (26% abundance at −15 °C). The low-level clouds were formed in the presence of sea salt and continental particles with ice abundance below 30%. The derived statistics on clouds’ high-resolution vertical distributions and thermodynamic phase can be combined with Cloudnet cloud products and lidar-retrieved aerosol properties to study aerosol-cloud interactions in this understudied region and evaluate microphysics parameterizations in numerical weather prediction and global climate models.

Hemispheric contrasts in ice formation in stratiform mixed-phase clouds: disentangling the role of aerosol and dynamics with ground-based remote sensing

Multi-year ground-based remote-sensing datasets were acquired with the Leipzig Aerosol and Cloud Remote Observations System (LACROS) at three sites. A highly polluted central European site (Leipzig, Germany), a polluted and strongly dust-influenced eastern Mediterranean site (Limassol, Cyprus), and a clean marine site in the southern midlatitudes (Punta Arenas, Chile) are used to contrast ice formation in shallow stratiform liquid clouds. These unique, long-term datasets in key regions of aerosol–cloud interaction provide a deeper insight into cloud microphysics. The influence of temperature, aerosol load, boundary layer coupling, and gravity wave motion on ice formation is investigated. With respect to previous studies of regional contrasts in the properties of mixed-phase clouds, our study contributes the following new aspects: (1) sampling aerosol optical parameters as a function of temperature, the average backscatter coefficient at supercooled conditions is within a factor of 3 at all three sites. (2) Ice formation was found to be more frequent for cloud layers with cloud top temperatures above -15∘C than indicated by prior lidar-only studies at all sites. A virtual lidar detection threshold of ice water content (IWC) needs to be considered in order to bring radar–lidar-based studies in agreement with lidar-only studies. (3) At similar temperatures, cloud layers which are coupled to the aerosol-laden boundary layer show more intense ice formation than decoupled clouds. (4) Liquid layers formed by gravity waves were found to bias the phase occurrence statistics below -15∘C. By applying a novel gravity wave detection approach using vertical velocity observations within the liquid-dominated cloud top, wave clouds can be classified and excluded from the statistics. After considering boundary layer and gravity wave influences, Punta Arenas shows lower fractions of ice-containing clouds by 0.1 to 0.4 absolute difference at temperatures between −24 and -8∘C. These differences are potentially caused by the contrast in the ice-nucleating particle (INP) reservoir between the different sites.