Observations of clouds, aerosols, precipitation, and surface radiation over the Southern Ocean: An overview of CAPRICORN, MARCUS, MICRE, and SOCRATES

Weather and climate models are challenged by uncertainties and biases in simulating Southern Ocean (SO) radiative fluxes that trace to a poor understanding of cloud, aerosol, precipitation, and radiative processes, and their interactions. Projects between 2016 and 2018 used in situ probes, radar, lidar, and other instruments to make comprehensive measurements of thermodynamics, surface radiation, cloud, precipitation, aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and ice nucleating particles over the SO cold waters, and in ubiquitous liquid and mixed-phase clouds common to this pristine environment. Data including soundings were collected from the NSF-NCAR G-V aircraft flying north-south gradients south of Tasmania, at Macquarie Island, and on the R/V Investigator and RSV Aurora Australis. Synergistically these data characterize boundary layer and free troposphere environmental properties, and represent the most comprehensive data of this type available south of the oceanic polar front, in the cold sector of SO cyclones, and across seasons. Results show largely pristine environments with numerous small and few large aerosols above cloud, suggesting new particle formation and limited long-range transport from continents, high variability in CCN and cloud droplet concentrations, and ubiquitous supercooled water in thin, multilayered clouds, often with small-scale generating cells near cloud top. These observations demonstrate how cloud properties depend on aerosols while highlighting the importance of dynamics and turbulence that likely drive heterogeneity of cloud phase. Satellite retrievals confirmed low clouds were responsible for radiation biases. The combination of models and observations is examining how aerosols and meteorology couple to control SO water and energy budgets.

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Author McFarquhar, G. M.
Bretherton, C. S.
Marchand, R.
Protat, A.
DeMott, P. J.
Alexander, S. P.
Roberts, G. C.
Twohy, C. H.
Toohey, D.
Siems, S.
Huang, Y.
Wood, R.
Rauber, R. M.
Lasher-Trapp, S.
Jensen, Jørgen B.
Stith, Jeffrey Len
Mace, J.
Um, J.
Järvinen, Emma
Schnaiter, M.
Gettelman, Andrew
Sanchez, K. J.
McCluskey, Christina S.
Russell, L. M.
McCoy, I. L.
Atlas, R. L.
Bardeen, Charles
Moore, K. A.
Hill, T. C. J.
Humphries, R. S.
Keywood, M. D.
Ristovski, Z.
Cravigan, L.
Schofield, R.
Fairall, C.
Mallet, M. D.
Kreidenweis, S. M.
Rainwater, B.
D'Alessandro, J.
Wang, Y.
Wu, W.
Saliba, G.
Levin, E. J. T.
Ding, S.
Lang, F.
Truong, S. C. H.
Wolff, Cory
Haggerty, Julie A.
Harvey, M. J.
Klekociuk, A. R.
McDonald, A.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2021-04-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-11T16:16:52.258316
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:24443
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation McFarquhar, G. M., Bretherton, C. S., Marchand, R., Protat, A., DeMott, P. J., Alexander, S. P., Roberts, G. C., Twohy, C. H., Toohey, D., Siems, S., Huang, Y., Wood, R., Rauber, R. M., Lasher-Trapp, S., Jensen, Jørgen B., Stith, Jeffrey Len, Mace, J., Um, J., Järvinen, Emma, Schnaiter, M., Gettelman, Andrew, Sanchez, K. J., McCluskey, Christina S., Russell, L. M., McCoy, I. L., Atlas, R. L., Bardeen, Charles, Moore, K. A., Hill, T. C. J., Humphries, R. S., Keywood, M. D., Ristovski, Z., Cravigan, L., Schofield, R., Fairall, C., Mallet, M. D., Kreidenweis, S. M., Rainwater, B., D'Alessandro, J., Wang, Y., Wu, W., Saliba, G., Levin, E. J. T., Ding, S., Lang, F., Truong, S. C. H., Wolff, Cory, Haggerty, Julie A., Harvey, M. J., Klekociuk, A. R., McDonald, A.. (2021). Observations of clouds, aerosols, precipitation, and surface radiation over the Southern Ocean: An overview of CAPRICORN, MARCUS, MICRE, and SOCRATES. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7m61pnz. Accessed 30 July 2025.

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