Characterising surface conditions during the Arctic Cloud in Summer Experiment (ACSE)

The Arctic Cloud in Summer Experiment (ACSE), which took place within the Arctic Ocean in summer and early autumn of 2014, aims to improve our understanding of Arctic low-level mixed-phase clouds and their relationships to the atmospheric boundary layer and surface forcings. A host of instruments were installed on the icebreaker Oden to obtain direct measurements of turbulent fluxes (those of momentum, heat, and moisture), boundary layer thermodynamic and dynamic structure, local ice fraction, surface temperature, and 2D ocean wave spectra when on station. Such direct measurements are required to address inadequacies in the parameterizations of cloud and boundary layer properties and turbulent exchanges over the Arctic region.

Here, we provide a first look at data obtained during the 3-month cruise, including eddy covariance measurements of turbulent fluxes, digital imagery, surface temperature measurements, and 2D wave spectra provided by a waverider buoy. This set of measurements will be used to characterise surface conditions and turbulent exchanges, and later combined with measurements of atmospheric vertical profiles and cloud properties provided by a Doppler lidar, a scanning microwave radiometer, Doppler cloud radar, and a radar wind profiler, to provide a comprehensive picture of the complex coupling between surface conditions, low-level clouds, and the boundary layer structure.