References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-9-3505-2009

Ice supersaturations and cirrus cloud crystal numbers

Krämer

¹ Schiller

¹ Afchine

¹ Bauer

¹ Gensch

¹ Mangold

¹ ⁵ Schlicht

¹ ⁶ Spelten

¹ Sitnikov

² Borrmann

³ de Reus

³ Spichtinger

⁴

Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institut fur Chemie und Dynamik der Geosphäre 1: Stratosphäre, 52425 Jülich, Germany

Central Aerological Observatory, Dolgoprudny, Region Moscow, Russia

Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Joh.-Joachim-Becher-Weg 21, 55099 Mainz, Germany

ETH Zürich, Institut für Atmosphäre und Klima, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland

now at: Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Avenue Circulaire 3, 1180 Brussels, Belgium

now at: Mühlenbachstraße 5, 52134 Herzogenrath, Germany

03 06 2009

9 11 3505 3522

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Upper tropospheric observations outside and inside of cirrus clouds indicate water vapour mixing ratios sometimes exceeding water saturation. Relative humidities over ice (RHice) of up to and more than 200% have been reported from aircraft and balloon measurements in recent years. From these observations a lively discussion continues on whether there is a lack of understanding of ice cloud microphysics or whether the water measurements are tainted with large uncertainties or flaws. Here, RHice in clear air and in ice clouds is investigated. Strict quality-checked aircraft in situ observations of RHice were performed during 28 flights in tropical, mid-latitude and Arctic field experiments in the temperature range 183–240 K. In our field measurements, no supersaturations above water saturation are found. Nevertheless, super- or subsaturations inside of cirrus are frequently observed at low temperatures (<205 K) in our field data set. To explain persistent RHice deviating from saturation, we analysed the number densities of ice crystals recorded during 20 flights. From the combined analysis – using conventional microphysics – of supersaturations and ice crystal numbers, we show that the high, persistent supersaturations observed inside of cirrus can possibly be explained by unexpected, frequent very low ice crystal numbers that could scarcely be caused by homogeneous ice nucleation. Heterogeneous ice formation or the suppression of freezing might better explain the observed ice crystal numbers. Thus, our lack of understanding of the high supersaturations, with implications for the microphysical and radiative properties of cirrus, the vertical redistribution of water and climate, is traced back to the understanding of the freezing process at low temperatures.

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