Statistics on clouds and their relation to thermodynamic conditions at Ny-Ålesund using ground-based sensor synergy

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: Nomokonova, Tatiana, Ebell, Kerstin, Löhnert, Ulrich, Maturilli, Marion, Ritter, Christoph, O'Connor, Ewan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH 2019
• Subjects: Alfred Wegener Institute; Ny Ålesund; Ny-Ålesund; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/49391/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/49391/1/acp-19-4105-2019.pdf; https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/19/4105/2019/acp-19-4105-2019.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.c3f88753-3063-4559-a43b-15cfa4c226c8

The French–German Arctic research base AW-IPEV (the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research – AWI – and the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor – IPEV) at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, is a unique station for monitoring cloud-related processes in the Arctic. For the first time, data from a set of ground-based instruments at the AWIPEV observatory are analyzed to characterize the vertical structure of clouds. For this study,a 14-month dataset from Cloudnet combining observations from a ceilometer, a 94 GHz cloud radar, and a microwave radiometer is used. A total cloud occurrence of ∼81 %, with 44.8 % multilayer and 36 % single-layer clouds, was found. Among single-layer clouds the occurrence of liquid, ice, and mixed-phase clouds was 6.4 %, 9 %, and 20.6 %, respectively. It was found that more than 90 % of single-layer liquid and mixed-phase clouds have liquid water path (LWP)values lower than 100 and 200 g m−2, respectively. Mean values of ice water path (IWP) for ice and mixed-phase clouds were found to be 273 and 164 g m−2, respectively. The different types of single-layer clouds are also related to in-cloud temperature and the relative humidity under which they occur. Statistics based on observations are compared to ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic (ICON) model output. Distinct differences in liquid-phase occurrence in observations and themodel at different environmental temperatures lead to higher occurrence of pure ice clouds. A lower occurrence of mixed-phase clouds in the model at temperatures between−20 and−5°C becomes evident. The analyzed dataset is useful for satellite validation and model evaluation