A13B-0316
Simultaneous Remote Sensing of Ice Nuclei, Ice Crystals, Liquid Water and Atmospheric Dynamics in and Around Mixed-Phase Layered Clouds
Monday, 14 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Johannes Buehl1, Martin Radenz1, Ronny Leinweber2, Volker Lehmann2, Patric Seifert1, Ulrich Görsdorf2 and Albert Ansmann1, (1)Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Leipzig, Germany, (2)Deutscher Wetterdienst, Lindenberg, Germany
Abstract:
The process of ice nucleation plays a crucial role for the hydrological cycle on Earth. It influences the lifetime of clouds and can be a key element in the early stages of rain initiation. Therefore, direct observations of ice nucleation events in the atmosphere are crucial for quantitative insight into this complex process. Recently, DeMott (2010) provided a general description of the ice nucleating ability of aerosol particles, thus the estimation of available ice nuclei, e.g., from lidar measurements becomes possible for the first time. On the other hand, sophisticated combined remote sensing methods like Cloudnet allow detailed insight into the properties of ice crystals originating from cloud layers. In this context, combined observations with Raman/Depolarization lidar and radar show show a high synergistic potential, because combined they provide high sensitivity to the properties of both aerosol particles and ice crystals.
In this work, results of a measurement campaign at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg, Germany are presented (Bühl, 2015). For the time period of four month a PollyXT Raman/Depolarization lidar, Doppler lidar, cloud radar and wind profiler were operated together to capture the full picture of aerosol properties, vertical motions, ice and liquid water properties in and around layered clouds. The number of ice nuclei in an aerosol layer surrounding a cloud is estimated via the parameterization of DeMott (2010). The number of ice nuclei falling from an ice cloud is estimated at the same time via radar measurements. It is shown that both quantities can be used to gain detailed, quantitative knowledge about the process of ice nucleation in layered clouds.
References:
DeMott, P. et. al., 2010: Predicting global atmospheric ice nuclei distributions and their impacts on climate, PNAS, 107 (25)
Buehl, J. et. al., 2015: Combined vertical-velocity observations with Doppler lidar, cloud radar and wind profiler, AMTD
