Simulations of primary and secondary ice production during an Arctic mixed-phase cloud case from the Ny-Ålesund Aerosol Cloud Experiment (NASCENT) campaign

Abstract

Abstract. The representation of Arctic clouds and their phase distributions, i.e., the amount of ice and supercooled water, influences predictions of future Arctic warming. Therefore, it is essential that cloud phase is correctly captured by models in order to accurately predict the future Arctic climate. Ice crystal formation in clouds happens through ice nucleation (primary ice production) and ice multiplication (secondary ice production). In common weather and climate models, rime splintering is the only secondary ice production process included. In addition, prescribed number concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei or cloud droplets and ice-nucleating particles are often overestimated in Arctic environments by standard model configurations. This can lead to a misrepresentation of the phase distribution and precipitation formation in Arctic mixed-phase clouds, with important implications for the Arctic surface energy budget. During the Ny-Ålesund Aerosol Cloud Experiment (NASCENT), a holographic probe mounted on a tethered balloon took in situ measurements of number and mass concentrations of ice crystals and cloud droplets in Svalbard, Norway, during fall 2019 and spring 2020. In this study, we choose one case study from this campaign that shows evidence of strong secondary ice production and use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to simulate it at a high vertical and spatial resolution. We test the performance of different microphysical parametrizations and apply a new state-of-the-art secondary ice parametrization. We find that agreement with observations highly depends on the prescribed cloud condensation nuclei/cloud droplet and ice-nucleating particle concentrations and requires an enhancement of secondary ice production processes. Lowering mass mixing ratio thresholds for rime splintering inside the Morrison microphysics scheme is crucial to enable secondary ice production and thereby match observations for the right reasons. In our case, rime splintering is required to initiate collisional breakup. The simulated contribution from collisional breakup is larger than that from droplet shattering. Simulating ice production correctly for the right reasons is a prerequisite for reliable simulations of Arctic mixed-phase cloud responses to future temperature or aerosol perturbations.