Identification

Title

Resilience of persistent Arctic mixed-phase clouds

Abstract

The Arctic region is particularly sensitive to climate change. Mixed-phase clouds, comprising both ice and supercooled liquid water, have a large impact on radiative fluxes in the Arctic. These clouds occur frequently during all seasons in the region, where they often persist for many days at a time. This persistence is remarkable given the inherent instability of ice-liquid mixtures. In recent years it has emerged that feedbacks between numerous local processes, including the formation and growth of ice and cloud droplets, radiative cooling, turbulence, entrainment and surface fluxes of heat and moisture, interact to create a resilient mixed-phase cloud system. As well as the persistent mixed-phase cloud state there is another distinct Arctic state, characterized by radiatively clear conditions. The occurrence of either state seems to be related, in part, to large-scale environmental conditions. We suggest that shifts in the large-scale environment could alter the prevalence of mixed-phase clouds, potentially affecting surface radiative fluxes and the Arctic energy budget.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7pg1t82

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

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

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