Clouds and precipitation in the initial phase of marine cold-air outbreaks as observed by airborne remote sensing

Schirmacher, Imke; Schnitt, Sabrina; Klingebiel, Marcus; Maherndl, Nina; Kirbus, Benjamin; Ehrlich, André; Mech, Mario; Crewell, Susanne

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12823-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 22

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12823-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

HALO-(AC)³ – an airborne campaign to study air...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12823-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 22

Research article

|

19 Nov 2024

Research article |

| 19 Nov 2024

Clouds and precipitation in the initial phase of marine cold-air outbreaks as observed by airborne remote sensing

Imke Schirmacher, Sabrina Schnitt, Marcus Klingebiel, Nina Maherndl, Benjamin Kirbus, André Ehrlich, Mario Mech, and Susanne Crewell

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12823-2024-supplement

Data sets

modis_amsr2 V. Ludwig and G. Spreen https://data.seaice.uni-bremen.de/modis_amsr2/

Complete ERA5 from 1940: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.143582cf

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Model code and software

Ac3airborne M. Mech et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7305585

Python implementation of the COARE 3.5 Bulk Air-Sea Flux algorithm B. Ludovic et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5110991

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Short summary

During Arctic marine cold-air outbreaks, cold air flows from sea ice over open water. Roll circulations evolve, forming cloud streets. We investigate the initial circulation and cloud development using high-resolution airborne measurements. We compute the distance an air mass traveled over water (fetch) from back trajectories. Cloud streets form at 15 km fetch, cloud cover strongly increases at around 20 km, and precipitation forms at around 30 km.