Identification

Title

Comparing simulated PSC optical properties with CALIPSO observations during the 2010 Antarctic winter

Abstract

We simulate polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) during the Antarctic winter of 2010 using the Specified Dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model/Community Aerosol and Radiation Model for Atmospheres (SD-WACCM/CARMA) model. The current PSC model contains microphysical schemes for supercooled ternary solutions (STS) and nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles, as well as a prognostic treatment for PSC ice particles and dehydration. Our simulations and CALIPSO satellite data suggest two major NAT particle formation mechanisms. The first mechanism is the nucleation of NAT from STS. Our model, with homogeneous nucleation rates of NAT from STS constrained by observations from the Arctic winter of 2010-2011, reproduces optical properties observed by CALIPSO over Antarctica in May and the timing of denitrification observed by the Microwave Limb Sounder within their uncertainties. On the other hand, the CALIPSO data indicate that our simulations are missing clouds containing small NAT particles with large number densities. We suggest these particles are most likely to form from ice clouds or STS in gravity waves, as found by previous investigations. The simulated cloud coverage agrees with the CALIPSO cloud coverage within a few percent on average with a correlation coefficient of 0.83. However, using the CALIPSO classification algorithm, simulated ice clouds often fall into Mix categories under the denitrified and dehydrated conditions. The model needs an improved ice microphysical representation, not only to allow ice particles to be a source of NAT but also to provide information on ice cloud particle number and size so that ice cloud optical properties can be more precisely calculated for comparison with CALIPSO data.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rf5wtv

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-01-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact