As part of the analysis following the Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Storms (SNOWIE) project, the ice water content (IWC) in ice and mixed-phase clouds is retrieved from airborne Wyoming Cloud Radar (WCR) measurements aboard the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA), which has a suite of integrated in situ IWC, optical array probes, and remote sensing measurements, and it provides a unique dataset for this algorithm development and evaluation. A sensitivity study with different idealized ice particle habits shows that the retrieved IWC with aggregate ice particle habit agrees the best with the in situ measurement, especially in ice or ice-dominated mixed-phase clouds with a correlation coefficient (rr) of 0.91 and a bias of close to 0. For mixed-phase clouds with ice fraction ratio less than 0.8, the variances of IWC estimates increase (rr = 0.76) and the retrieved mean IWC is larger than in situ IWC by a factor of 2. This is found to be related to the uncertainty of in situ measurements, the large cloud inhomogeneity, and the retrieval assumption uncertainty. The simulated reflectivity Ze and IWC relationships assuming three idealized ice particle habits and measured particle size distributions show that hexagonal columns with the same Ze have a lower IWC than aggregates, whose Ze–IWC relation is more consistent with the observed WCR Ze and in situ IWC relation in those clouds. The 2D stereo probe (2DS) images also indicate that ice particle habit transition occurs in orographic mixed-phase clouds; hence, the retrieved IWC assuming modified gamma particle size distribution (PSD) of aggregate particles tends to have a greater bias in this kind of clouds.
Sensitivity of convectively driven tropical tropopause cirrus properties to ice habits in high-resolution simulations
Abstract. Cirrus clouds that form in the tropical tropopause layer(TTL) can play a key role in vertical transport through the uppertroposphere and lower stratosphere, which can significantly impact theradiative energy budget and stratospheric chemistry. However, the lack ofrealistic representation of natural ice cloud habits in microphysicalparameterizations can lead to uncertainties in cloud-related processes andcloud–climate feedbacks. The main goal of this study is to investigate therole of different cloud regimes and the associated ice habits in regulatingthe properties of the TTL. We compare aircraft measurements from theStratoClim field campaign to a set of numerical experiments at the scale of large-eddy simulations (LESs) for the same case study that employ differentmicrophysics schemes. Aircraft measurements over the southern slopes of theHimalayas captured high ice water content (HIWC) up to 2400 ppmv and iceparticle aggregates exceeding 700 µm in size with unusually longresidence times. The observed ice particles were mainly of liquid origin,with a small amount formed in situ. The corresponding profile of ice water content (IWC) fromthe ERA5 reanalysis corroborates the presence of HIWC detrained from deep-convective plumes in the TTL but underestimates HIWC by an order ofmagnitude. In the TTL, only the scheme that predicts ice habits canreproduce the observed HIWC, ice number concentration, and bimodal iceparticle size distribution. The lower range of particle sizes is mostlyrepresented by planar and columnar habits, while the upper range isdominated by aggregates. Large aggregates with sizes between 600 and 800 µm have fall speeds of less than 20 cm s−1, which explains thelong residence time of the aggregates in the TTL. Planar ice particles ofliquid origin contribute substantially to HIWC. The columnar and aggregatehabits are in the in situ range with lower IWC and number concentrations. Forall habits, the ice number concentration increases with decreasingtemperature. For the planar ice habit, relative humidity is inverselycorrelated with fall speed. This correlation is less evident for the othertwo ice habits. In the lower range of supersaturation with respect to ice,the columnar habit has the highest fall speed. The difference in ice numberconcentration across habits can be up to 4 orders of magnitude, withaggregates occurring in much smaller numbers. We demonstrate and quantifythe linear relationship between the differential sedimentation of pristineice crystals and the size of the aggregates that form when pristine crystalscollide. The slope of this relationship depends on which pristine ice habitsediments faster. Each simulated ice habit is associated with distinctradiative and latent heating rates. This study suggests that a modelconfiguration nested down to LES scales with a microphysicalparameterization that predicts ice shape evolution is crucial to provide anaccurate representation of the microphysical properties of TTL cirrus andthus the associated (de)hydration process.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1743753
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10466378
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
- Volume:
- 23
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1680-7324
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2393 to 2419
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2393-2023
