NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Observations of long-lived mixed-phase Arctic boundary layer clouds on 7 May 1998 during the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Regional Experiment (FIRE)–Arctic Cloud Experiment (ACE)/Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) campaign provide a unique opportunity to test understanding of cloud ice formation. Under the microphysically simple conditions observed (apparently negligible ice aggregation, sublimation, and multiplication), the only expected source of new ice crystals is activation of heterogeneous ice nuclei (IN) and the only sink is sedimentation. Large-eddy simulations with size-resolved microphysics are initialized with IN number concentration N_IN measured above cloud top, but details of IN activation behavior are unknown. If activated rapidly (in deposition, condensation, or immersion modes), as commonly assumed, IN are depleted from the well-mixed boundary layer within minutes. Quasi-equilibrium ice number concentration N_i is then limited to a small fraction of overlying N_IN that is determined by the cloud-top entrainment rate w_e divided by the number-weighted ice fall speed at the surface (v_f). N_i/N_IN ≪ 1 since w_e < 1 cm/s and v_f > 10 cm/s. Such conditions may be common for this cloud type, which has implications for modeling IN diagnostically, interpreting measurements, and quantifying sensitivity to increasing N_IN (when w_e/v_f < 1, entrainment rate limitations serve to buffer cloud system response). In order to reproduce observed ice crystal size distributions and cloud radar reflectivities with rapidly consumed IN in this case, the measured above-cloud N_IN must be multiplied by ~30. However, results are sensitive to assumed ice crystal properties not constrained by measurements. In addition, simulations do not reproduce the pronounced mesoscale heterogeneity in radar reflectivity that is observed.