loading page

Strong ocean/sea-ice contrasts observed in satellite-derived ice crystal number concentrations in Arctic ice boundary-layer clouds
  • Iris Papakonstantinou Presvelou,
  • Odran Sourdeval,
  • Johannes Quaas
Iris Papakonstantinou Presvelou
University of Leipzig, University of Leipzig, University of Leipzig

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile
Odran Sourdeval
University of Lille, University of Lille, University of Lille
Author Profile
Johannes Quaas
Universität Leipzig, Universität Leipzig, Universität Leipzig
Author Profile

Abstract

The Arctic climate changes at a faster rate than the rest of the globe. Boundary-layer clouds may play an important role to this change. At temperatures below 0°C, mixed-phase clouds exist and their phase and longevity is influenced by the abundance of ice crystals, which in turn is a function of aerosols serving as ice nucleating particles (INPs). Previous in-situ studies suggested a local source of INPs due to biological activity over open ocean. Here we investigate ice crystal concentrations in clouds below 2km at a large scale, by exploiting a newly-developed dataset - DARDAR-Nice - retrieved from active satellite remote sensing. The dataset spans from 2006-2016. Contrary to previous expectation, we find that at a given latitude and temperature, there are more ice crystals over sea ice than over open ocean. This enhancement is particularly found in clouds south of 70°N, but also at temperatures between 0 and -10°C.
16 Jul 2022Published in Geophysical Research Letters volume 49 issue 13. 10.1029/2022GL098207