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In this study, we conduct sensitivity experiments with the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 to understand the impact of representing heterogeneous distribution between cloud liquid and ice on the phase partitioning in mixed‐phase clouds through different perturbations on the Wegener‐Bergeron‐Findeisen (WBF) process. In two experiments, perturbation factors that are based on assumptions of pocket structure and the partial homogeneous cloud volume derived from the High‐performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HIAPER) Pole‐to‐Pole Observation (HIPPO) campaign are utilized. Alternately, a mass‐weighted assumption is used in the calculation of WBF process to mimic the appearance of unsaturated area in mixed‐phase clouds as the result of heterogeneous distribution. Model experiments are tested in both single column and weather forecast modes and evaluated against data from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program's Mixed‐Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M‐PACE) field campaign and long‐term ground‐based multisensor measurements. Model results indicate that perturbations on the WBF process can significantly modify simulated microphysical properties of Arctic mixed‐phase clouds. The improvement of simulated cloud water phase partitioning tends to be linearly proportional to the perturbation magnitude that is applied in the three different sensitivity experiments. Cloud macrophysical properties such as cloud fraction and frequency of occurrence of low‐level mixed‐phase clouds are less sensitive to the perturbation magnitude than cloud microphysical properties. Moreover, this study indicates that heterogeneous distribution between cloud hydrometeors should be treated consistently for all cloud microphysical processes. The model vertical resolution is also important for liquid water maintenance in mixed‐phase clouds.

 

Cirrus cloud radiative effects are largely affected by ice microphysical properties, including ice water content (IWC), ice crystal number concentration (Ni) and mean diameter (Di). These characteristics vary significantly due to thermodynamic, dynamical and aerosol conditions. In this work, a global-scale observation dataset is used to examine regional variations of cirrus cloud microphysical properties, as well as several key controlling factors, i.e., temperature, relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi), vertical velocity (w), and aerosol number concentrations (Na). Results are compared with simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere Model version 6 (CAM6). The differences between simulations and observations are found to vary with latitude and temperature. Specifically, simulations are found to underestimate IWC by a factor of 5–30 in all regions. Simulated Ni is overestimated in most regions except Northern Hemisphere midlatitude and polar regions. Simulated Di is underestimated, especially for warmer conditions (−50 °C to −40 °C) and higher Na, possibly due to less effective ice particle growth/sedimentation and weaker aerosol indirect effects, respectively. For RHi effects, the frequency and magnitude of ice supersaturation is underestimated in simulations for clear-sky conditions, and the simulated IWC and Ni show maximum values at 80 % RHi instead of 110 % as observed. For w effects, both observations and simulations show variances of w (σw) decreasing from tropics to polar regions, but simulations show much higher σw for in-cloud condition than clear-sky condition. These findings provide an observation-based guideline for improving simulated ice microphysical properties and their relationships with key controlling factors at various geographical locations. 

Cloud phase and relative humidity (RH) distributions at −67° to 0°C over the Southern Ocean during austral summer are compared between in situ airborne observations and global climate simulations. A scale-aware comparison is conducted using horizontally averaged observations from 0.1 to 50 km. Cloud phase frequencies, RH distributions, and liquid mass fraction are found to be less affected by horizontal resolutions than liquid and ice water content (LWC and IWC, respectively), liquid and ice number concentrations (Nc_liqand Nc_ice, respectively), and ice supersaturation (ISS) frequency. At −10° to 0°C, observations show 27%–34% and 17%–37% of liquid and mixed phases, while simulations show 60%–70% and 3%–4%, respectively. Simulations overestimate (underestimate) LWC and Nc_liqin liquid (mixed) phase, overestimate Nc_icein mixed phase, underestimate IWC in ice and mixed phases, and underestimate (overestimate) liquid mass fraction below (above) −5°C, indicating that observational constraints are needed for different cloud phases. RH frequently occurs at liquid saturation in liquid and mixed phases for all datasets, yet the observed RH in ice phase can deviate from liquid saturation by up to 20%–40% at −20° to 0°C, indicating that the model assumption of liquid saturation for coexisting ice and liquid is inaccurate for low liquid mass fractions (<0.1). Simulations lack RH variability for partial cloud fractions (0.1–0.9) and underestimate (overestimate) ISS frequency for cloud fraction <0.1 (≥0.6), implying that improving RH subgrid-scale parameterizations may be a viable path to account for small-scale processes that affect RH and cloud phase heterogeneities. Two sets of simulations (nudged and free-running) show very similar results (except for ISS frequency) regardless of sample sizes, corroborating the statistical robustness of the model–observation comparisons.