In situ measurements of tropical cloud properties in the West African Monsoon: upper tropospheric ice clouds, Mesoscale Convective System outflow, and subvisual cirrus
Year: 2011
Authors: Frey W., Borrmann S., Kunkel D., Weigel R., de Reus M., Schlager H., Roiger A., Voigt C., Hoor P., Curtius J., Krämer M., Schiller C., Volk C.M., Homan C.D., Fierli F., Di Donfrancesco G., Ulanovsky A., Ravegnani F., Sitnikov N.M., Viciani S., D’Amato F., Shur G.N., Belyaev G.V., Law K.S., Cairo F.
Autors Affiliation: Max Planck Inst Chem, Particle Chem Dept, Mainz, Germany; Johannes Gutenberg Univ Mainz, Inst Atmospher Phys, Mainz, Germany; Elementar Analysensyst GmbH, Hanau, Germany; DLR, Inst Phys Atmosphare, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany; Goethe Univ Frankfurt, Inst Atmospher & Environm Sci, Frankfurt, Germany; Forschungszentrum Julich, IEK 7, D-52425 Julich, Germany; Univ Wuppertal, Dept Phys, Wuppertal, Germany; ISAC CNR, Inst Atmospher Sci & Climate, Rome, Italy; Ente Nazl Nuove Tecnol Energia & Ambiente, Frascati, Italy; Cent Aerol Observ, Dolgoprudnyi, Moskow Region, Russia; CNR INO Natl Inst Opt, Florence, Italy; MDB Myasishchev Design Bur, Moscow, Russia; Univ Versailles St Quentin, Univ Paris 06, UPMC, CNRS,INSU,LATMOS,IPSL, Paris, France
Abstract: In situ measurements of ice crystal size distributions in tropical upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UT/LS) clouds were performed during the SCOUT-AMMA campaign over West Africa in August 2006. The cloud properties were measured with a Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe (FSSP-100) and a Cloud Imaging Probe (CIP) operated aboard the Russian high altitude research aircraft M-55 Geophysica with the mission base in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. A total of 117 ice particle size distributions were obtained from the measurements in the vicinity of Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCS). Two to four modal lognormal size distributions were fitted to the average size distributions for different potential temperature bins. The measurements showed proportionately more large ice particles compared to former measurements above maritime regions. With the help of trace gas measurements of NO, NOy, CO2, CO, and O3 and satellite images, clouds in young and aged MCS outflow were identified. These events were observed at altitudes of 11.0 km to 14.2 km corresponding to potential temperature levels of 346 K to 356 K. In a young outflow from a developing MCS ice crystal number concentrations of up to (8.3 ± 1.6) cm-3 and rimed ice particles with maximum dimensions exceeding 1.5 mm were found. A maximum ice water content of 0.05 g m-3 was observed and an effective radius of about 90 µm. In contrast the aged outflow events were more diluted and showed a maximum number concentration of 0.03 cm -3, an ice water content of 2.3 × 10-4 g m-3, an effective radius of about 18 µm, while the largest particles had a maximum dimension of 61 µm. Close to the tropopause subvisual cirrus were encountered four times at altitudes of 15 km to 16.4 km. The mean ice particle number concentration of these encounters was 0.01 cm-3 with maximum particle sizes of 130 µm, and the mean ice water content was about 1.4 × 10-4 g m-3. All known in situ measurements of subvisual tropopause cirrus are compared and an exponential fit on the size distributions is established for modelling purposes.A comparison of aerosol to ice crystal number concentrations, in order to obtain an estimate on how many ice particles may result from activation of the present aerosol, yielded low ratios for the subvisual cirrus cases of roughly one cloud particle per 30 000 aerosol particles, while for the MCS outflow cases this resulted in a high ratio of one cloud particle per 300 aerosol particles.
Journal/Review:
Volume: 11 (12) Pages from: 5569 to: 5590
More Information: The SCOUT-O3 and SCOUT-AMMA projects were funded by the European Commission through Contract 505390-GOCE-CT-2004-505390 and the EC Integrated Projects AMMA-EU (Contract no. 004089-2). The M-55 Geophysica campaign was supported by the EEIG-Geophysica Consortium, CNRS-INSU, CNES, and EUFAR. Meteosat Second Generation data were provided by the AMMA database (http://aoc.amma-international.org/observation/satellite/) and were processed including the flight tracks by Sylwester Arabas from the University of Warsaw, Poland.KeyWords: aerosol; cirrus; cloud; convective system; ice crystal; in situ measurement; mesoscale meteorology; stratosphere; troposphereDOI: 10.5194/acp-11-5569-2011ImpactFactor: 5.520Citations: 44data from “WEB OF SCIENCE” (of Thomson Reuters) are update at: 2024-11-03References taken from IsiWeb of Knowledge: (subscribers only)Connecting to view paper tab on IsiWeb: Click hereConnecting to view citations from IsiWeb: Click here
