Modulation of Cloud Phase, Precipitation and Radiation by Ice Nuclei Perturbations in High Resolution Model Simulations

Abstract:

The distribution of cloud phase determines a multitude of cloud properties, such as albedo, precipitation and temporal evolution. The crucial role of primary ice formation has been recognized decades ago, yet only in the last years our knowledge has reached a level that allows for approximate estimations of the aerosol-dependent effect of ice nucleation in high resolution cloud simulations. However, besides primary formation of cloud particles, also their thermodynamic trajectories as well as particle-particle interactions are determinants of the cloud phase. Although the conversion of liquid to ice in the mixed-phase regime is unidirectional, a perturbation in the primary ice formation (with increased aerosol concentrations as a trigger) does not necessarily yield higher ice fractions. This can be attributed to the modified efficiencies of depositional particle growth, liquid-ice-collisions and particle sedimentation. Consequently a modified mixed-phase regime impacts both warm (T>0°C) and cold (T<-40°C) parts of the atmosphere by sedimentation and vertical advection, respectively.

Our study is motivated by the question how the liquid-ice partitioning is modulated by perturbed ice nuclei concentrations. By suppressing the feedback of microphysical perturbations on the model dynamics we are able to extract the microphysical effects. We define different microphysical regimes based on liquid and ice mass changes in order to analyze the processes which have led to those regimes. We find that conversion via the vapor phase is dominant only in distinct temperature regimes, while liquid mass changes are often linked to riming-dominated regimes, and sedimentation efficiencies make an important contribution to ice mass changes which finally determine the surface precipitation via melting. For our case of deep convection, cloud albedo is highly sensitive to the amount of small droplets reaching the homogeneous freezing level.

We investigated simulations of three-dimensional, idealized, single convective clouds as well as limited area model simulations with different cloud types on larger scales. The results are based on the COSMO-ART model (Vogel et al., 2009) and an extended version of the two-moment cloud microphysics scheme based on Seifert and Beheng (2006).