Microphysical processes producing high ice water contents (HIWCs) in tropical convective clouds during the HAIC-HIWC field campaign: dominant role of secondary ice production

Huang, Yongjie; Wu, Wei; McFarquhar, Greg M.; Xue, Ming; Morrison, Hugh; Milbrandt, Jason; Korolev, Alexei V.; Hu, Yachao; Qu, Zhipeng; Wolde, Mengistu; Nguyen, Cuong; Schwarzenboeck, Alfons; Heckman, Ivan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2365-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2365-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2365-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 4

Research article

|

22 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 22 Feb 2022

Microphysical processes producing high ice water contents (HIWCs) in tropical convective clouds during the HAIC-HIWC field campaign: dominant role of secondary ice production

Yongjie Huang, Wei Wu, Greg M. McFarquhar, Ming Xue, Hugh Morrison, Jason Milbrandt, Alexei V. Korolev, Yachao Hu, Zhipeng Qu, Mengistu Wolde, Cuong Nguyen, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, and Ivan Heckman

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2365-2022-supplement

Data sets

HAIC-HIWC_2015: High Altitude Ice Crystals, High Ice Water Content Project UCAR/NCAR - Earth Observing Laboratory https://data.eol.ucar.edu/master_lists/generated/haic-hiwc_2015

ERA5 Reanalysis (0.25 Degree Latitude-Longitude Grid) European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts https://doi.org/10.5065/BH6N-5N20

Model code and software

Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model WRF Community https://doi.org/10.5065/D6MK6B4K

Short summary

Numerous small ice crystals in tropical convective storms are difficult to detect and could be potentially hazardous for commercial aircraft. Previous numerical simulations failed to reproduce this phenomenon and hypothesized that key microphysical processes are still lacking in current models to realistically simulate the phenomenon. This study uses numerical experiments to confirm the dominant role of secondary ice production in the formation of these large numbers of small ice crystals.