Identification

Title

Phase characterization of cold sector southern ocean cloud tops: Results from SOCRATES

Abstract

For a given cloud, whether the cloud top is predominately made up of ice crystals or supercooled liquid droplets plays a large role in the clouds overall radiative effects. This study uses collocated airborne radar, lidar, and thermodynamic data from 12 high-altitude flight legs during the Southern Ocean Clouds, Radiation, Aerosol Transport Experimental Study (SOCRATES) to characterize Southern Ocean (SO) cold sector cloud top phase (i.e., within 96 m of top) as a function of cloud top temperature (CTT). A training data set was developed to create probabilistic phase classifications based on High Spectral Resolution Lidar data and Cloud Radar data. These classifications were then used to identify dominant cloud top phase. Case studies are presented illustrating examples of supercooled liquid water at cloud top at different CTT ranges over the SO (-3 degrees C < CTTs < -28 degrees C). During SOCRATES, 67.4% of sampled cloud top had CTTs less than 0 degrees C. Of the subfreezing cloud tops sampled, 91.7% had supercooled liquid water present in the top 96 m and 74.9% were classified entirely as liquid-bearing. Liquid-bearing cloud tops were found at CTTs as cold as -30 degrees C. Horizontal cloud extent was also determined as a function of median cloud top height.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bv7m0z

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

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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

2020-12-27T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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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

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