Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island
Over the remote Southern Ocean (SO), cloud feedbacks contribute substantially to Earth system model (ESM) radiative biases. The evolution of low Southern Ocean clouds (cloud-top heights < ∼ 3 km) is strongly modulated by precipitation and/or evaporation, which act as the primary sink of cloud con...
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2023
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:43b8d4934d854d3ea6fa79e86a9ce8f9 2023-09-05T13:21:01+02:00 Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island M. W. Stanford A. M. Fridlind I. Silber A. S. Ackerman G. Cesana J. Mülmenstädt A. Protat S. Alexander A. McDonald 2023-08-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023 https://doaj.org/article/43b8d4934d854d3ea6fa79e86a9ce8f9 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/9037/2023/acp-23-9037-2023.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1680-7316 https://doaj.org/toc/1680-7324 doi:10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023 1680-7316 1680-7324 https://doaj.org/article/43b8d4934d854d3ea6fa79e86a9ce8f9 Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol 23, Pp 9037-9069 (2023) Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023 2023-08-20T00:34:37Z Over the remote Southern Ocean (SO), cloud feedbacks contribute substantially to Earth system model (ESM) radiative biases. The evolution of low Southern Ocean clouds (cloud-top heights < ∼ 3 km) is strongly modulated by precipitation and/or evaporation, which act as the primary sink of cloud condensate. Constraining precipitation processes in ESMs requires robust observations suitable for process-level evaluations. A year-long subset (April 2016–March 2017) of ground-based profiling instrumentation deployed during the Macquarie Island Cloud and Radiation Experiment (MICRE) field campaign (54.5 ∘ S, 158.9 ∘ E) combines a 95 GHz (W-band) Doppler cloud radar, two lidar ceilometers, and balloon-borne soundings to quantify the occurrence frequency of precipitation from the liquid-phase cloud base. Liquid-based clouds at Macquarie Island precipitate ∼ 70 % of the time, with deeper and colder clouds precipitating more frequently and at a higher intensity compared to thinner and warmer clouds. Supercooled cloud layers precipitate more readily than layers with cloud-top temperatures > 0 ∘ C, regardless of the geometric thickness of the layer, and also evaporate more frequently. We further demonstrate an approach to employ these observational constraints for evaluation of a 9-year GISS-ModelE3 ESM simulation. Model output is processed through the Earth Model Column Collaboratory (EMC 2 ) radar and lidar instrument simulator with the same instrument specifications as those deployed during MICRE, therefore accounting for instrument sensitivities and ensuring a coherent comparison. Relative to MICRE observations, the ESM produces a smaller cloud occurrence frequency, smaller precipitation occurrence frequency, and greater sub-cloud evaporation. The lower precipitation occurrence frequency by the ESM relative to MICRE contrasts with numerous studies that suggest a ubiquitous bias by ESMs to precipitate too frequently over the SO when compared with satellite-based observations, likely owing to sensitivity limitations of ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Macquarie Island Southern Ocean Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Southern Ocean Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 23 16 9037 9069 |
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language |
English |
topic |
Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999 |
spellingShingle |
Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999 M. W. Stanford A. M. Fridlind I. Silber A. S. Ackerman G. Cesana J. Mülmenstädt A. Protat S. Alexander A. McDonald Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island |
topic_facet |
Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999 |
description |
Over the remote Southern Ocean (SO), cloud feedbacks contribute substantially to Earth system model (ESM) radiative biases. The evolution of low Southern Ocean clouds (cloud-top heights < ∼ 3 km) is strongly modulated by precipitation and/or evaporation, which act as the primary sink of cloud condensate. Constraining precipitation processes in ESMs requires robust observations suitable for process-level evaluations. A year-long subset (April 2016–March 2017) of ground-based profiling instrumentation deployed during the Macquarie Island Cloud and Radiation Experiment (MICRE) field campaign (54.5 ∘ S, 158.9 ∘ E) combines a 95 GHz (W-band) Doppler cloud radar, two lidar ceilometers, and balloon-borne soundings to quantify the occurrence frequency of precipitation from the liquid-phase cloud base. Liquid-based clouds at Macquarie Island precipitate ∼ 70 % of the time, with deeper and colder clouds precipitating more frequently and at a higher intensity compared to thinner and warmer clouds. Supercooled cloud layers precipitate more readily than layers with cloud-top temperatures > 0 ∘ C, regardless of the geometric thickness of the layer, and also evaporate more frequently. We further demonstrate an approach to employ these observational constraints for evaluation of a 9-year GISS-ModelE3 ESM simulation. Model output is processed through the Earth Model Column Collaboratory (EMC 2 ) radar and lidar instrument simulator with the same instrument specifications as those deployed during MICRE, therefore accounting for instrument sensitivities and ensuring a coherent comparison. Relative to MICRE observations, the ESM produces a smaller cloud occurrence frequency, smaller precipitation occurrence frequency, and greater sub-cloud evaporation. The lower precipitation occurrence frequency by the ESM relative to MICRE contrasts with numerous studies that suggest a ubiquitous bias by ESMs to precipitate too frequently over the SO when compared with satellite-based observations, likely owing to sensitivity limitations of ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
M. W. Stanford A. M. Fridlind I. Silber A. S. Ackerman G. Cesana J. Mülmenstädt A. Protat S. Alexander A. McDonald |
author_facet |
M. W. Stanford A. M. Fridlind I. Silber A. S. Ackerman G. Cesana J. Mülmenstädt A. Protat S. Alexander A. McDonald |
author_sort |
M. W. Stanford |
title |
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island |
title_short |
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island |
title_full |
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island |
title_fullStr |
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island |
title_full_unstemmed |
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island |
title_sort |
earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the southern ocean's macquarie island |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023 https://doaj.org/article/43b8d4934d854d3ea6fa79e86a9ce8f9 |
geographic |
Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean |
genre |
Macquarie Island Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Macquarie Island Southern Ocean |
op_source |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol 23, Pp 9037-9069 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/9037/2023/acp-23-9037-2023.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1680-7316 https://doaj.org/toc/1680-7324 doi:10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023 1680-7316 1680-7324 https://doaj.org/article/43b8d4934d854d3ea6fa79e86a9ce8f9 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023 |
container_title |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
container_volume |
23 |
container_issue |
16 |
container_start_page |
9037 |
op_container_end_page |
9069 |
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1776201634348531712 |