Project Details
Projekt
Microphysics and climate impact of ice clouds in high latitudes – MICRO-ICE
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Christiane Voigt
Subject Area
Atmospheric Science
Term
since 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442649092
MICRO-ICE will provide climatological data on microphysical properties of ice clouds in high latitudes to evaluate their climate impact.Ice clouds in high latitudes in winter exert a substantial radiative forcing onto surface temperatures in a region of the world, where surface temperatures increase fastest. Direct observations of microphysical properties of ice clouds and their variability are still incomplete, in particular in high latitudes, and ice crystal number concentrations and sizes are not adequately represented in today’s climate models which currently limits our understanding of the clouds’ impact on climate. In the project, the cloud combination probe CCP and the precipitation imaging probe PIP will be operated on HALO from October to December 2020 in order to determine a climatological data set of microphysical ice cloud properties (e.g. ice crystal number concentration, particle size distribution, ice water content and ice particle habit versus temperature) from 20 science flights of HALO above Northern Europe and Canada. High latitude cirrus induced by high pressure systems, warm conveyor belts, orographic waves or convection will be probed in the temperature range from the homogenous ice nucleation threshold down to 205 K or below. Microphysical properties of high-latitude cirrus will be compared to cirrus formed in mid latitudes or the tropics to investigate differences and related impact on radiation. Instantaneous radiative forcings of specific measured cirrus systems in their atmospheric environment will be calculated with a radiative transfer model and compared to radiation measurements on HALO. Further, the novel data set of microphysical properties of ice clouds and their variability in the poorly probed high latitudes will be used as a base for the evaluation satellite data in the Arctic. Finally, the climate impact of cirrus in high latitudes will be assessed by comparing measured ice crystal number concentrations, effective diameters and ice water contents to results from global climate models. Hence, the MICRO-ICE will provide a comprehensive data set on cirrus in the rarely probed and poorly accessible high-latitudes with the scope to enhance our understanding of the role of high-latitude ice clouds for climate.
DFG Programme
Infrastructure Priority Programmes
