Measured ice nucleating particle concentrations improve the simulation of mid-level mixed-phase clouds over the high-latitude Southern Ocean

Berne, Alexis; Vignon, Étienne; Alexander, Simon; DeMott, Paul J.; Sotiropoulou, Georgia; Gerber, Franziska; Hill, T. C. J.; Marchand, Roger; Nenes, Athanasios

doi:10.1002/essoar.10503669.1

Cited by 4 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…The imminent arrival at Mawson of the cyclone's warm front and associated cloud bands are visible in the satellite cloud image and geopotential height data at 19 UT February 14 in Figure 13. The cold front associated with this cyclone, as with the previous Mawson cyclone, remained well to the north of the continent (not shown, see Vignon et al [2021] for further details). Satellite images and thermodynamic data from later times indicate that this cyclone weakened as it propagated south-eastward toward the coast, with cloud dissipating in a midlevel westerly flow on January 16 (not shown).…”

Section: Overview Of Eventmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…Following this characterization of the fine‐scale structure of mixed‐phase clouds and precipitation within cyclones adjacent to the Antarctic, the next step is to simulate these events in high‐resolution models. Although it is likely that models will have difficulty producing and maintaining SLW, we suspect that by appropriately tuning the microphysical schemes using MARCUS observations, we will be able to more accurately reproduce the clouds’ vertical structure, evolution, and phase partitioning (Vignon et al., 2021). Such a path to model improvement of Southern Ocean clouds could be informed by recent analyses of geostationary satellite imagery, which are capable of providing cloud macrophysical properties and information on subcloud phase beneath supercooled liquid cloud tops (e.g., Noh et al., 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mixed‐Phase Clouds and Precipitation in Southern Ocean Cyclones and Cloud Systems Observed Poleward of 64°S by Ship‐Based Cloud Radar and Lidar

et al. 2021

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These clouds remain difficult to model correctly due to the interplay of microphysical and dynamical processes which regulate their formation, maintenance, and decay (Sotiropoulou et al., 2016), and because the scales over which these processes occur are substantially smaller than the resolution of climate and weather prediction models. The observed longevity of MPCs indicates that the removal of ice crystals from the cloud through gravitational sedimentation must be balanced by a continuous source of liquid water. Intracloud processes including updrafts and turbulent mixing, or a continuous supply of new liquid at cloud base, must be sufficient to replenish the liquid water (Korolev & Field, 2008;Rauber & Tokay, 1991). The correct modeling of cloud phase partitioning between ice and liquid water is necessary to match observations of reflected shortwave radiation (

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Section: Overview Of Eventmentioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mixed‐Phase Clouds and Precipitation in Southern Ocean Cyclones and Cloud Systems Observed Poleward of 64°S by Ship‐Based Cloud Radar and Lidar

et al. 2021

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“…All-sky imagery, along with estimates of cloud fraction and Sun obscuration obtained during this voyage, was primarily used for quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of other sky-viewing observations such as the ceilometer and MiniMPL measurements (as described in, e.g. Wagner and Kleiss, 2016). Cloud fraction derived from the sky camera product is also useful for model evaluation, and when combined with the raw imagery and ceilometer data it could potentially be used to classify cloud types as described in Huertas-Tato et al (2017).…”

Section: Sky Camerasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The low concentrations of INPs over the Southern Ocean limit cloud droplet freezing, reduce precipitation, and enhance cloud reflectivity compared to regions of higher INP abundance (e.g. Vergara-Temprado et al, 2018;Vignon et al, 2020). This indicates that an accurate representation of INPs in climate models is necessary to properly simulate cloud radiative properties over the Southern Ocean.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Southern Ocean cloud and aerosol data: a compilation of measurements from the 2018 Southern Ocean Ross Sea Marine Ecosystems and Environment voyage

Kremser

Harvey

Kuma

et al. 2021

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. Due to its remote location and extreme weather conditions, atmospheric in situ measurements are rare in the Southern Ocean. As a result, aerosol–cloud interactions in this region are poorly understood and remain a major source of uncertainty in climate models. This, in turn, contributes substantially to persistent biases in climate model simulations such as the well-known positive shortwave radiation bias at the surface, as well as biases in numerical weather prediction models and reanalyses. It has been shown in previous studies that in situ and ground-based remote sensing measurements across the Southern Ocean are critical for complementing satellite data sets due to the importance of boundary layer and low-level cloud processes. These processes are poorly sampled by satellite-based measurements and are often obscured by multiple overlying cloud layers. Satellite measurements also do not constrain the aerosol–cloud processes very well with imprecise estimation of cloud condensation nuclei. In this work, we present a comprehensive set of ship-based aerosol and meteorological observations collected on the 6-week Southern Ocean Ross Sea Marine Ecosystem and Environment voyage (TAN1802) voyage of RV Tangaroa across the Southern Ocean, from Wellington, New Zealand, to the Ross Sea, Antarctica. The voyage was carried out from 8 February to 21 March 2018. Many distinct, but contemporaneous, data sets were collected throughout the voyage. The compiled data sets include measurements from a range of instruments, such as (i) meteorological conditions at the sea surface and profile measurements; (ii) the size and concentration of particles; (iii) trace gases dissolved in the ocean surface such as dimethyl sulfide and carbonyl sulfide; (iv) and remotely sensed observations of low clouds. Here, we describe the voyage, the instruments, and data processing, and provide a brief overview of some of the data products available. We encourage the scientific community to use these measurements for further analysis and model evaluation studies, in particular, for studies of Southern Ocean clouds, aerosol, and their interaction. The data sets presented in this study are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4060237 (Kremser et al., 2020).

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“…WRF has been run in the Antarctic region for several climate and synoptic applications (e.g., Bozkurt et al., 2020, 2021; Bromwich et al., 2013; Deb et al., 2018; Powers et al., 2012). The advanced microphysics capabilities of WRF make it suitable for detailed cloud simulations (e.g., Grosvenor et al., 2012; Hines et al., 2019; Listowski & Lachlan‐Cope, 2017; Listowski et al., 2019; Vignon et al., 2021). Polar optimizations are added in Polar WRF (http://www.polarmet.osu.edu/PWRF) to improve the performance for Arctic and Antarctic simulations.…”

Section: Polar Wrfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Frigid Mixed‐Phase Clouds for Pristine Coastal Antarctica

et al. 2021

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Supercooled water is common in the clouds near coastal Antarctica and occasionally occurs at temperatures at or below −30°C. Yet the ice physics in most regional and global numerical models will glaciate out these clouds. This presents a challenge for the simulation of highly supercooled clouds that were observed at McMurdo, Antarctica during the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) project during 2015–2017. The polar optimized version of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (Polar WRF) with the recently developed two‐moment P3 microphysics scheme was used to simulate observed supercooled liquid water cases during March and November 2016. Nudging of the simulations to observed rawinsonde profiles and Antarctic automatic weather station observations provided increased realism and much greater cloud water amounts. Sensitivity tests that adjust the ice physics for extremely low ice nucleating particle (INP) concentrations decrease cloud ice and increases the cloud liquid water closer to observed amounts. In these tests, a liquid layer near cloud top is simulated, in agreement with observations. Accurate representation of INP concentrations appears to be critical for the simulation of coastal Antarctic clouds.

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Measured ice nucleating particle concentrations improve the simulation of mid-level mixed-phase clouds over the high-latitude Southern Ocean

Cited by 4 publications

References 63 publications

Mixed‐Phase Clouds and Precipitation in Southern Ocean Cyclones and Cloud Systems Observed Poleward of 64°S by Ship‐Based Cloud Radar and Lidar

Mixed‐Phase Clouds and Precipitation in Southern Ocean Cyclones and Cloud Systems Observed Poleward of 64°S by Ship‐Based Cloud Radar and Lidar

Southern Ocean cloud and aerosol data: a compilation of measurements from the 2018 Southern Ocean Ross Sea Marine Ecosystems and Environment voyage

Predicting Frigid Mixed‐Phase Clouds for Pristine Coastal Antarctica

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