Clouds and precipitation in the initial phase of marine cold-air outbreaks as observed by airborne remote sensing

Abstract

Marine cold-air outbreaks (MCAOs) strongly affect the Arctic water cycle and, thus, climate through large-scale air mass transformations. The description of air mass transformations is still challenging, partly because previous observations do not resolve fine scales, particularly for the initial development of an MCAO, and due to a lack of information about the thermodynamical evolution starting over sea ice and continuing over open ocean and associated cloud microphysical properties. Therefore, we focus on the crucial initial development within the first 200 km over open water for two case studies in April 2022 during the HALO-(AC)3 campaign (named after the High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft and Transregional Collaborative Research Centre ArctiC Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and SurfaCe Processes and Feedback Mechanisms (AC)3). The two events, just 3 d apart, belong to a particularly long-lasting MCAO and occurred under relatively similar thermodynamic conditions. Even though both events were stronger than the climatological 75th percentile of that period, the first event was characterized by colder air masses from the central Arctic which led to an MCAO index twice as high compared to that of the second event. The evolution and structure were assessed by flight legs crossing the Fram Strait multiple times at the same location, sampling perpendicularly to the cloud streets. Airborne remote sensing and in situ measurements were used to build statistical descriptions of the boundary layer, dynamics, clouds, and precipitation. For this purpose, we established a novel approach based solely on radar reflectivity measurements to detect roll circulation that forms cloud streets. The two cases exhibit different properties of clouds, riming, and roll circulations, though the width of the roll circulation is similar. For the stronger event, cloud tops are higher; more liquid-topped clouds exist; the liquid water path, mean radar reflectivity, precipitation rate, and precipitation occurrence have increased; and riming is active. The variability in rime mass has the same horizontal scale as the roll circulation, implying the importance of roll circulation on cloud microphysics and precipitation. Boundary layer and cloud properties evolve with distance over open water, as seen by, e.g., cloud top height rising. In general, cloud streets form after traveling 15 km over open water. After 20 km, this formation enhances cloud cover to just below 100 %. After around 30 km, precipitation forms, though for the weaker event, the development of precipitation is shifted to larger distances. Within our analysis, we developed statistical descriptions of various parameters (i) within the roll circulation and (ii) as a function of distance over open water. These detailed cloud metrics are particularly well suited for the evaluation of cloud-resolving models close to the sea ice edge to evaluate their representation of dynamics and microphysics.