loading page

Classification of cloud microphysical properties as a function of sea ice concentration conditions during MOSAiC
  • Pablo Saavedra Garfias,
  • Heike Kalesse-Los
Pablo Saavedra Garfias
University of Leipzig

Corresponding Author:pablo.saavedra@uni-leipzig.de

Author Profile
Heike Kalesse-Los
University of Leipzig
Author Profile

Abstract

As part of the (AC)3 Arctic Amplification project, we are studying the influence of specific sea ice conditions like the presence of leads or polynyas on micro- and macrophysical cloud properties such as cloud fraction, altitude, thickness, thermodynamic phase, and their coupling state with respect to the underlying surface during the MOSAiC expedition’s legs 1 to 3. Micro- and macrophysical properties of surface-coupled clouds are analyzed as a function of sea ice concentration (SIC) in the vicinity of the ground-based atmospheric remote-sensing observations onboard the RV Polarstern. Only situations are analyzed where wind favored the transportation of air from location where open sea ice is detected. Cloud microphysical properties are obtained from the CloudNet cloud target classification algorithm which uses the atmospheric remote-sensing instrumentation suite on board of RV Polarstern provided by the US Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) mobile facility, the TROPOS ship-borne Atmosphere observation suite (OCEANET) and liquid water path retrievals by the University of Cologne. Primarily, the classical Matlab-based CloudNet classifications retrieved by TROPOS are used. Furthermore, the recently released ARM “evaluation” Active Remote Sensing Clouds (ARSCL) data product for the KA-band cloud radar is also evaluated by the new Python CloudNet version developed at the Finish Meteorological Institute. Discrepancies between those two CloudNet versions will be evaluated and reported as feedback for the ARM evaluation data set. High resolution (1-km) merged AMSR2-MODIS satellite retrievals of Sea Ice Concentration by the University of Bremen are used as information for sea ice monitoring. The present contribution only exploits SIC data, however future studies will focus on MOSAiC specific products for the classification of leads. Statistics for the cloud properties as a function of SIC will be presented as first approach to investigate the influence of sea ice conditions to central Arctic clouds.