Dissecting cirrus clouds: Navigating effects of turbulence on homogeneous ice formation

Turbulent air motions determine the local environment in which cloud ice crystals form. Homogeneous freezing of aqueous solution droplets is the most fundamental pathway to nucleate ice crystals in cirrus. Lack of knowledge about the role of turbulence in cirrus ice formation limits our understanding of how uncertainties in small-scale cloud processes affect the climatological radiative effect of cirrus. Here we shed first light on how turbulent fluctuations in temperature and supersaturation interact with probabilistic homogeneous freezing. We show that spatial model resolution substantially below 1–10 m is needed to properly simulate homogeneous freezing events. Importantly, microscale turbulence generates large variability in nucleated ice crystal number concentrations. Previous research ascribed this variability to mesoscale dynamical forcing due to gravity waves alone. The turbulence-generated microphysical variability has macrophysical implications. The wide range of predicted cloud radiative heating anomalies in anvil cirrus due to turbulence-ice nucleation interactions, comparable to typical mean values, is potentially large enough to affect the response of tropical cirrus cloud systems to global warming. Our results have ramifications for the multiscale modeling of cirrus clouds and the interpretation of in situ measurements.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links

Related Dataset #1 : Dissecting cirrus clouds: Navigating effects of turbulence on homogeneous ice formation

Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.


Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Kärcher, B.
Hoffmann, F.
Sokol, A. B.
Gasparini, B.
Corcos, M.
Jensen, E.
Atlas, R.
Podglajen, A.
Morrison, Hugh
Hertzog, A.
Plougonven, R.
Chandrakar, Kamal Kant
Grabowski, Wojciech
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2025-04-06T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-10T19:47:32.783142
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:43322
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Kärcher, B., Hoffmann, F., Sokol, A. B., Gasparini, B., Corcos, M., Jensen, E., Atlas, R., Podglajen, A., Morrison, Hugh, Hertzog, A., Plougonven, R., Chandrakar, Kamal Kant, Grabowski, Wojciech. (2025). Dissecting cirrus clouds: Navigating effects of turbulence on homogeneous ice formation. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d72n56pn. Accessed 02 August 2025.

Harvest Source