Articles | Volume 21, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-755-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-755-2021
Research article
 | 
19 Jan 2021
Research article |  | 19 Jan 2021

Secondary ice production in summer clouds over the Antarctic coast: an underappreciated process in atmospheric models

Georgia Sotiropoulou, Étienne Vignon, Gillian Young, Hugh Morrison, Sebastian J. O'Shea, Thomas Lachlan-Cope, Alexis Berne, and Athanasios Nenes

Data sets

Microphysics of Antarctic Clouds (MAC) project: in-situ airborne atmospheric measurements, model output and NAME dispersion footprints T. W. Choularton and Z. L. Fleming https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/43b756af495440ef8ab460d16926263f

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Short summary
Summer clouds have a significant impact on the radiation budget of the Antarctic surface and thus on ice-shelf melting. However, these are poorly represented in climate models due to errors in their microphysical structure, including the number of ice crystals that they contain. We show that breakup from ice particle collisions can substantially magnify the ice crystal number concentration with significant implications for surface radiation. This process is currently missing in climate models.
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