Investigating the vertical extent and short-wave radiative effects of the ice phase in Arctic summertime low-level clouds

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: E. Järvinen, F. Nehlert, G. Xu, F. Waitz, G. Mioche, R. Dupuy, O. Jourdan, M. Schnaiter
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2023
• Subjects: Physics; QC1-999; Chemistry; QD1-999; Arctic; Rime; albedo; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7611-2023; https://doaj.org/article/8ae2fce6ea6e4d77b705c808646c0602

Low-level (cloud tops below 2 km) mixed-phase clouds are important in amplifying warming in the Arctic region through positive feedback in cloud fraction, water content and phase. In order to understand the cloud feedbacks in the Arctic region, good knowledge of the vertical distribution of the cloud water content, particle size and phase is required. Here we investigate the vertical extent of the cloud-phase and ice-phase optical properties in six case studies measured in the European Arctic during the ACLOUD campaign. Late spring- and summertime stratiform clouds were sampled in situ over pack ice, marginal sea ice zone and open-ocean surface, with cloud top temperatures varying between − 15 and − 1.5 ∘ C. The results show that, although the liquid phase dominates the upper parts of the clouds, the ice phase was frequently observed in the lower parts down to cloud top temperatures as warm as − 3.8 ∘ C. In the studied vertical cloud profiles, the maximum of average liquid phase microphysical properties, droplet number concentration, effective radius and liquid water content, varied between 23 and 152 cm −3 , 19 and 26 µ m, 0.09 and 0.63 g m −3 , respectively. The maximum of average ice-phase microphysical properties varied between 0.1 and 57 L −1 for the ice number concentration, 40 and 70 µ m for the effective radius, and 0.005 and 0.08 g m −3 for the ice water content. The elevated ice crystal number concentrations and ice water paths observed for clouds, with cloud top temperatures between − 3.8 and − 8.7 ∘ C can be likely attributed to secondary ice production through rime splintering. Low asymmetry parameters between 0.69 and 0.76 were measured for the mixed-phase ice crystals with a mean value of 0.72. The effect of the ice-phase optical properties on the radiative transfer calculations was investigated for the four cloud cases potentially affected by secondary ice production. Generally the choice of ice-phase optical properties only has a minor effect on the cloud transmissivity and albedo, except in a ...