Clouds come in many forms, sizes, and types, which regulate their effects on the weather. A new study led by the University of Washington shows that the cracking of ice droplets forming ice sheets within the South Seas’ clouds dramatically affects the ability of clouds to reflect sunlight in the atmosphere. demonstrates that incorporating this ice-breaking process improves the ability of high-resolution terrestrial models to mimic clouds over the Southern Ocean – as well as the ability of Earth meteorological models.
Rachel Altas states
“The lower clouds of the Southern Ocean should not be considered liquid clouds,” said lead author Rachel Atlas, a UW medical student studying theology in the field of air science. “Ice formation in the Southern Ocean low clouds has a significant impact on cloud quality and needs to be calculated on global models.”
Outcomes and appearance
The results show that it is important to incorporate a process where frozen particles collide with very cold water droplets that cause them to freeze and break down, forming large pieces of ice. Doing so darkens the clouds, or reduces their appearance, allowing more sunlight to reach the surface of the ocean.
The difference between incorporating details of ice formation within clouds compared to non-insertion was 10 Watts per square meter between 45 degrees south and 65 degrees south of summer, which is strong enough to have a significant impact on temperature.
Courses and data shows
The study used observations of the 2018 space campaign flying in the clouds of the Southern Ocean, as well as data from NASA’s CERES satellite and the Japanese satellite Himawari-8. The formation of ice reduces the appearance of clouds because snowflakes form, grow and fall out. cloud very successfully.
“Ice crystals eliminate a large part of the cloud quite thin, thus reducing the horizontal cover,” Atlas said. “Ice crystals also eliminate some of the liquid in the thick layers of clouds. So both ice particles shrink and cover the remaining cloud.”In February, which is summer in the Southern Ocean, about 90% of the sky is covered by clouds, and at least 25% of those clouds are affected by the type of glaciers that the study focus was on. Cloud fixation, especially for newer models that use a small grid space to accommodate clouds and storms, is important in calculating how many rays of sunlight reach the Earth.
clouds
“The Southern Ocean is the largest heat sink in the world, but its ability to absorb heat from the atmosphere depends on the ocean temperature, which is related to cloud coverage,” Atlas said.
Source Journal Reference:R. L. Atlas, C. S. Bretherton, M. F. Khairoutdinov, P. N. Blossey. Hallett‐Mossop Rime Splintering Dims Cumulus Clouds Over the Southern Ocean: New Insight From Nudged Global Storm‐Resolving Simulations. AGU Advances, 2022; 3 (2) DOI: 10.1029/2021AV000454
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