Midwinter Arctic leads form and dissipate low clouds

Li, Xia; Krueger, Steven K.; Strong, Courtenay; Mace, Gerald G.; Benson, Sally

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-14074-5

Title: Midwinter Arctic leads form and dissipate low clouds

Journal Article · 10 January 2020 · Nature Communications

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-14074-5 · OSTI ID:1629883

^[1]; Krueger, Steven K. ^[2];

^[2]; Mace, Gerald G. ^[2];

^[2]

Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences; DOE/OSTI
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences

Leads are a key feature of the Arctic ice pack during the winter owing to their substantial contribution to the surface energy balance. According to the present understanding, enhanced heat and moisture fluxes from high lead concentrations tend to produce more boundary layer clouds. However, described here in our composite analyses of diverse surface- and satellite-based observations, we find that abundant boundary layer clouds are associated with low lead flux periods, while fewer boundary layer clouds are observed for high lead flux periods. Motivated by these counterintuitive results, we conducted three-dimensional cloud-resolving simulations to investigate the underlying physics. We find that newly frozen leads with large sensible heat flux but low latent heat flux tend to dissipate low clouds. This finding indicates that the observed high lead fractions likely consist of mostly newly frozen leads that reduce any pre-existing low-level cloudiness, which in turn decreases downwelling infrared flux and accelerates the freezing of sea ice.

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Research Organization:: University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0019000

OSTI ID:: 1629883

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 11; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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