High-level clouds of the Arctic Cyclones: 3D structure, heating rates, and connections to the cyclone development
Abstract
Funds are provided to study high-level clouds associated with Arctic cyclones (ACs hereafter), which have not received much attention previously relative to Arctic stratus and low clouds. Radiative cooling by clouds and water vapor in the upper troposphere is important for the intensification of tropospheric polar vortices (TPVs) and the development of ACs. There is a gap in our knowledge of how cloud radiative processes affect the development of ACs and how this interaction varies by AC characteristics, such as their baroclinicity, intensity, column integrated water vapor, stage of life cycle, season, and location. Although atmospheric reanalyses capture the link between ACs, synoptic conditions, and the vertical and spatial distribution of high-level clouds qualitatively, substantial biases in high-level cloud amount and their seasonal variability remain. Examining cyclone structure and model errors in cyclone associated clouds is an effective way to identify model deficiencies. ACs at the surface and at the 500-hPa level and TPVs at the dynamical tropopause will be identified, tracked, and archived using reanalyses data. Composites of the cloud structure of ACs will be constructed by combining cloud observations from multiple satellite sensors including CloudSat, Calipso, and MODIS. Differences in cyclone structure and three dimensional cloud distribution between baroclinic ACs and equivalent barotropic ACs will be examined. ACs will be further categorized according to characteristics such as mean sea level pressure, 500-hPa vertical velocity, column-integrated moisture of the upper troposphere, lower tropospheric static stability, and mean surface winds. AC variability with season, regions of origin and pathways, and development stage will be investigated. Finally, cloud driven radiative heating will be examined for different types of ACs and associated TPVs to investigate the role of cloud radiative heating on their development. Mechanisms of cloud-AC interactions will be proposed and evaluated through experiments using the Polar version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (Polar WRF) model.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 05, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112625
Entities
People
- Zheng Liu
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Washington