Cloud-scale ice-supersaturated regions spatially correlate with high water vapor heterogeneities

Abstract. Cirrus clouds have large yet uncertain impacts on Earth's climate. Ice supersaturation (ISS) – where the relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi) is greater than 100% – is the prerequisite condition of ice nucleation. Here we use 1 Hz (~230 m) in situ, aircraft-based observations from 87° N to 67° S to analyze the spatial characteristics of ice-supersaturated regions (ISSRs). The median length of 1-D horizontal ISSR segments is found to be very small (~1 km), which is 2 orders of magnitude smaller than previously reported. To understand the conditions of these small-scale ISSRs, we compare individual ISSRs with their horizontally adjacent subsaturated surroundings and show that 99% and 73% of the ISSRs are moister and colder, respectively. When quantifying the contributions of water vapor (H₂O) and temperature (T) individually, the magnitudes of the differences between the maximum RHi values inside ISSRs (RHi_max) and the RHi in subsaturated surroundings are largely derived from the H₂O spatial variabilities (by 88%) than from those of T (by 9%). These features hold for both ISSRs with and without ice crystals present. Similar analyses for all RHi horizontal variabilities (including ISS and non-ISS) show strong contributions from H₂O variabilities at various T, H₂O, pressure (P) and various horizontal scales (~1–100 km). Our results provide a new observational constraint on ISSRs on the microscale (~100 m) and point to the importance of understanding how these fine-scale features originate and impact cirrus cloud formation and the RHi field in the upper troposphere (UT).