85th AMS Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 11 January 2005: 4:00 PM
Arctic Mixed-phased Cloud Microphysical Properties Retrieved from Ground-based Active and Passive Remote Sensors
Zhien Wang, GEST/Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County, Greenbelt, MD; and K. Sassen, B. B. Demoz, and D. N. Whiteman
Poster PDF (567.9 kB)
Studies have shown that the treatment of mixed-phase clouds in GCMs affects either their climate sensitivity or their mean climate impact. However, mixed-phase clouds are poorly understood. According to the observations from the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site at the North Slope of Alaska (NSA) and the SHEBA program field campaign, supercooled water cloud with ice virga is a main mixed-phase cloud type in the Arctic. An algorithm, which is capable to provide the microphysical properties for both the ice virga and supercooled water clouds, was developed to study this type of mixed-phase clouds by combining ground-based active and passive remote sensors. The algorithm is applied to long-term NSA CART site observations, and statistic results of Arctic mixed-phased cloud microphysical properties over this site will be discussed in this presentation.

Supplementary URL: