Radiative effects of polar stratospheric clouds during the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment and the Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition

Abstract

Daily, three dimensional fields of both Type I nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) and Type II water ice polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) have been generated in the polar regions during the period of the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment (AAOE) and the Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition (AASE) aircraft missions. Mission data on particulate composition and size, together with National Meteorological Center (NMC) analyzed temperatures, have been used. A comparison of computed l‐μm extinction coefficients with those observed by the Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement (SAM II) satellite served to constrain the water ice particle size and the nitric acid mixing ratio profiles. For AAOE, both Type I and Type II clouds were formed for the time period August 23 to September 17, after which only Type I clouds formed. During AASE, while Type I clouds were formed for each day between January 3 and February 10, Type II clouds formed on only two days, January 24 and 31. Mie theory and a radiative transfer model were used to compute the radiative heating rates during the mission periods, for clear and cloudy lower sky cases. Only the Type II water ice clouds have a significant radiative effect, with the Type I NAT PSCs generating a net heating or cooling of 0.1 K/d or less. The major effect of PSCs during AAOE appears to be one of net heating, with maximum heating rates as large as 0.5 K/d for particular days. Heating rates of 0.3 K/d or greater were computed during the periods September 1–6 and September 11–14. This additional heating was generally found over the western part of Antarctica and near the coastal regions, while a small cooling was computed over the Antarctic Plateau. However, when the heating rates are averaged over the AAOE mission, a net heating on the order of only 0.1 K/d is generated by the PSCs over western Antarctica, with other regions exhibiting a very small additional cooling, less than 0.05 K/d. Tropospheric clouds turn this net heating to a small amount of net cooling, roughly 0.1 K/d. The average effect of PSCs to the radiative budget during AASE is extremely small. Therefore, on the whole, the radiative effects of PSCs appear to be too small to have an appreciable impact on vertical motions except over time scales of a few days during AAOE. This result makes it unlikely that the radiative‐dynamical mechanisms proposed for the Antarctic ozone depletion play any significant role.