Arctic Cloud Fraction and Microphysical Characteristics from 8-year Space-based Lidar and Radar Measurements

Abstract:

Arctic clouds are a key factor in determining the energy budget both at the top of the atmosphere and at the suface by modulating the long-wave and short-wave radiative fluxes, which affect the surface temperature and may effect on the growth or retreat of sea ice extent and thickness. In this work, we exmine three-dimensional geometric and microphysical properties of Arctic clouds mainly from 8-year space-borne lidar Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) and Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR). Cloud Frations (CFs) from CALIOP-CPR and MODIS show similar seasonal and inter-annual variations, but shows significant different in CF over the opened sea area (i.e., Barents and Kara Sea) and over the sea ice. High occurrences of cloud top height are found below 2 km. But comparably high presences of mid- and high-level clouds are also found, especially in winter-time. This suggests that both low- and high-level clouds over the Arctic may influence on the long-wave radiation budget both at the surface and top of the atmosphere. On the other hand, the top height of winter-time clouds looks consistent with tropopause height. Cloud Optical Depth (COD) over the Arctic shows high in summer and low in winter, which would be contrary to the seasonal/monthly variations of CF. High COD during summer can be explained by enhanced level of liquid cloud droplet number concentrations. The number concentration and effective radius (in parenthesis) of liquid cloud droplet during summner was in the range of about 30 to 80 cm^-3 (about 6 ~ 16 mm).