Arctic low cloud response to variations in sea ice concentration: response or no response?

Abstract:

How do clouds and their effect on the surface radiation budget respond to variations in sea ice? The answer to this question depends significantly on the characteristics of the Arctic circulation. Sea ice-cloud interactions are important for modeling the Arctic climate. Specifically, understanding the cloud response to sea ice change is necessary for understanding the Arctic surface radiation budget, interannual variability in sea ice, and future changes in sea ice. Previous work has primarily addressed this problem from the interannual variability perspective. A novel perspective of sea ice-cloud interactions in the Arctic is provided here through a satellite footprint-level quantification of the covariance between sea ice and Arctic low cloud properties from NASA A-Train active remote sensing satellite data. The influence of atmospheric state on the cloud field must be considered. The covariance between Arctic low cloud properties and sea ice concentration is quantified by first partitioning each footprint into one of four atmospheric regimes defined by thresholds of lower tropospheric stability and mid-tropospheric vertical velocity. Regional variability is found in the cloud properties within each of these atmosphere state regimes indicating that the atmospheric state regimes do not account for the total influence of meteorological conditions on Arctic clouds. After removing the regional variability, a statistically significant covariance between cloud fraction and cloud total water is found within several atmospheric regimes. The covariance between clouds and sea ice is strongest in autumn and not statistically significant in winter and summer. The results indicate, however, that magnitude of any cloud response to changes in sea ice concentration is at least an order of magnitude smaller than the response of clouds to a change in the atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic state. The atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic environment is the most important factor determining how clouds influence the surface radiation budget and therefore recent and future changes in sea ice.