Modeling Cirrus Clouds. Part II: Treatment of Radiative Properties

Abstract

A new radiation scheme, suitable for two-stream radiation transfer models, was developed for cirrus clouds. Analytical expressions were derived for the extinction and absorption coefficients and the asymmetry parameter. These are functions of the ice particle size distribution parameters, ice particle shapes, and wavelength. The ice particle shapes considered were hexagonal plates and columns, bullet rosettes, and planar polycrystals. These appear to be the principal crystal types found in cirrus clouds. The formulation of radiative properties accounts for the size distribution projected area and the distance radiation travels through ice particles. For absorption, refraction and internal reflection of radiation were parameterized. By assuming an idealized cirrus cloud, the dependence of the single scatter albedo, reflectance, and emissivity on wavelength, ice particle shape, and size distribution was demonstrated. Reflectance and emissivity exhibited a strong dependence on ice particle shape, with planar polycrystals and bullet rosettes often being twice or more reflective than hexagonal columns and plates. The radiation scheme was tested with microphysical and radiation measurements from two cirrus cloud field studies. It was shown for both case studies that, by matching observed and predicted albedo-emissivity curves, the radiation scheme could predict the observed mean ice particle size and ice water path (IWP), provided the dominant ice particle shape was known or inferred. Retrieved IWP values differed from measurement-derived values by ≤15% for the first case study and 18% on average for the second case study. Hence, it may be feasible to retrieve realistic IWP estimates from satellite data for a given ice particle shape. Other radiation schemes have not been able to explain the second case study, which was characterized by relatively high albedos. These high albedos appeared to result from unusually small hexagonal plate crystals having asymmetry parameter values similar to those of cloud droplets. An improved treatment of the asymmetry parameter was not the primary reason for the good agreement between theory and observations. Rather, key factors appeared to be improved treatments of ice particle photon path, projected area and mass, and the omission of certain physical processes included in Mie theory that may not be appropriate for ice particles. The radiative properties were predicted from analytical expressions, making this scheme useful for predicting radiative properties in large-scale models without excessive increases in computation time.