The inability of regional models and global climate models to reproduce Arctic clouds and the Arctic radiation budget may be due to inadequate parameterizations of ice nuclei.

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Rainfall-generated floods in the Arctic are rare and seldom documented. The authors were fortunate in July 1999 to monitor such a flood on the Upper Kuparuk River in response to a 50-h duration rainfall event that produced a watershed average in excess of 80 mm. Atmospheric conditions prevailed that allowed moist air to move northward over areas of little or no vertical relief from the North Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. Cyclogenesis occurred along the quasi-stationary front separating maritime and continental air masses along the arctic coast. This low-pressure system propagated southward (inland) over the 142-km 2 headwater basin of the Kuparuk River in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range; a treeless area underlain by continuous permafrost. This research catchment was instrumented with a stream gauging station, two major and six minor meteorological stations, for a total of eight shielded rain gauges. The peak instantaneous flow was estimated at 100 m 3 s Ϫ1 and was about 3 times greater than any previously measured flood peak. Historically in the Arctic, annual peak floods occur following snowmelt when the snowpack that has accumulated for 8-9 months typically melts in 7-14 days. The shallow active layer, that surficial layer that freezes and thaws each year over the continuous permafrost, has limited subsurface storage when only thawed to a depth of 40 cm (at the time of the flood). Typically for this area, the ratio of runoff volume to snowmelt volume is near 0.67 or greater and the ratio for cumulative summer runoff and rainfall averages around 0.5 or greater. For the storm discussed here the runoff ratio was 0.73. These high runoff ratios are due to the role of permafrost limiting the potential subsurface storage and the steep slopes of this headwater basin.

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Abstract. The case under congideration occurred on March 4, 1993, and was observed as part of the Radiation and Eddy Flux Experiment (REFLEX II) 1993 observational campaign northwest of Spitsbergen. The off-ice flow on this day brought very cold surface air temperatures (-35øC) over a relatively warm ocean surface. The resultant latent and sensible surface heat fluxes produced intense convection and a thermal internal boundary layer (TIBL) which deepened with distance from the ice edge. Two-dimensional cloudresolving model (CRM) simulations were performed to determine the impact of various cloud parameterizations on the structure and evolution of the TIBL. The model was able to reproduce the observed thermal structure of the boundary layer to within the acknowledged limitations of the CRM approach. Sensitivity studies of cloud type showed that inclusion of mixed-phase microphysics had a large impact of BL depth and structure. Radiative heating of the cloud near cloud base and cooling near cloud top along with latent heat release were found to be significant sources of turbulence kinetic energy even in the present case where very strong surface heat fluxes occur. Ice-phase precipitation processes rapidly depleted the BL of condensate, weakening the radiative thermal forcing. A further consequence of condensate depletion in the mixed-phase cloud was a less humid boundary layer that was able to maintain a larger surface latent heat flux and continuously extract heat through condensation and deposition. Not surprisingly, the presence of clouds had a profound impact on the radiative budget at the surface, with the cloudy BL reducing surface radiative losses more that 60% over clear-sky values. Inclusion of the ice phase significantly affected the radiative budget as compared to purely liquid clouds, illustrating the importance of ice-phase-radiative couplings for accurate simulations of arctic clouds and boundary layer dynamics. IntroductionThe marginal ice zone (MIZ) is that region within which, more or less, total sea-ice coverage gives way to a generally ice-free ocean.