Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE) Field Campaign Report

Geerts, Bart; Pnnl, Bnl; McFarquhar, Greg M.; Xue, Lulin; Jensen, Mark J.; Kollias, P.; Ovchinnikov, Mikhail; Shupe, Matthew; DeMott, Paul J.; Wang, Yonggang; Tjernström, Michael; Field, Paul R.; Abel, Steven; Spengler, Thomas; Neggers, Roel; Crewell, Susanne; Wendisch, Manfred; Lüpkes, Christof

doi:10.2172/1763013

Cited by 3 publications

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“…For example, assessing how the MOSAiC observations compare with longer term analyses of atmospheric structure (e.g., Maturilli and Kayser, 2017), clouds (Dong et al, 2010;Shupe et al, 2011), water vapor and precipitation isotopes (Klein et al, 2016), aerosols (Schmeisser et al, 2018), and other parameters at these Arctic observatories will be essential. Additionally, during the MOSAiC year there was a second intensive atmospheric facility deployed by the DOE ARM program on the northern coast of Norway for the Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE; Geerts et al, 2021). These contemporaneous deployments offer the unique ability to link the similar atmospheric observations made at the MOSAiC, Ny-Ålesund, and COMBLE locations to study the evolution of air masses as they transit into, or out of, the Arctic.…”

Section: Atmospheric and Coupled System Science Across Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: Atmosphere

et al. 2022

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With the Arctic rapidly changing, the needs to observe, understand, and model the changes are essential. To support these needs, an annual cycle of observations of atmospheric properties, processes, and interactions were made while drifting with the sea ice across the central Arctic during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition from October 2019 to September 2020. An international team designed and implemented the comprehensive program to document and characterize all aspects of the Arctic atmospheric system in unprecedented detail, using a variety of approaches, and across multiple scales. These measurements were coordinated with other observational teams to explore cross-cutting and coupled interactions with the Arctic Ocean, sea ice, and ecosystem through a variety of physical and biogeochemical processes. This overview outlines the breadth and complexity of the atmospheric research program, which was organized into 4 subgroups: atmospheric state, clouds and precipitation, gases and aerosols, and energy budgets. Atmospheric variability over the annual cycle revealed important influences from a persistent large-scale winter circulation pattern, leading to some storms with pressure and winds that were outside the interquartile range of past conditions suggested by long-term reanalysis. Similarly, the MOSAiC location was warmer and wetter in summer than the reanalysis climatology, in part due to its close proximity to the sea ice edge. The comprehensiveness of the observational program for characterizing and analyzing atmospheric phenomena is demonstrated via a winter case study examining air mass transitions and a summer case study examining vertical atmospheric evolution. Overall, the MOSAiC atmospheric program successfully met its objectives and was the most comprehensive atmospheric measurement program to date conducted over the Arctic sea ice. The obtained data will support a broad range of coupled-system scientific research and provide an important foundation for advancing multiscale modeling capabilities in the Arctic.

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Section: Atmospheric and Coupled System Science Across Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: Atmosphere

et al. 2022

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“…The AMF1 was located on the northern coast of Scandinavia at a latitude of 69.141 • N, a longitude of 15.684 • E, and an altitude of 2 m above sea level, while a smaller set of instruments were deployed at a latitude of 75 • N on Bear Island. The main objective of the experiment was to quantify the properties of shallow convective clouds that develop as part of an air-mass transformation process when cold air advects over open water (Geerts et al, 2021). The two sites were located south of the Arctic ice edge, and the instruments successfully gathered comprehensive measurements of atmospheric conditions, clouds, precipitation, and aerosol that are used in this study.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface-based observations of cold-air outbreak clouds during the COMBLE field campaign

et al. 2023

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Abstract. Cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) are characterized by extreme air–sea energy exchanges and low-level convective clouds over large areas in the high-latitude oceans. As such, CAOs are an important component of the Earth's climate system. The CAOs in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE) deployment of the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF) provided the first comprehensive view of CAOs using a suite of ground-based observations at the northern coast of Norway. Here, cloud and precipitation observations from 13 CAO cases during COMBLE are analyzed. A vertical air motion retrieval technique is applied to the Ka-band ARM Zenith-pointing Radar (KAZR) observations. The CAO cumulus clouds are characterized by strong updrafts with magnitudes between 2–8 m s−1, vertical extents of 1–3 km, and horizontal scales of 0.25–3 km. A strong relationship between our vertical air velocity retrievals and liquid water path (LWP) measurements is found. The LWP measurements exceed 1 kg m−2 in strong updraft areas, and the vertical extent of the updraft correlates well with the LWP values. The CAO cumulus clouds exhibit eddy dissipation rate values between 10−3 and 10−2 m2 s−3 in the lowest 10 km of the atmosphere, and using a radar Doppler spectra technique, evidence of secondary ice production is found during one of the cases.

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Observations of marine cold-air outbreaks: a comprehensive data set of airborne and dropsonde measurements from the Springtime Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (STABLE)

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Tetzlaff

Lüpkes

et al. 2022

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. In March 2013, the Springtime Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (STABLE) was carried out in the Fram Strait region and over Svalbard to investigate atmospheric convection and boundary layer modifications due to interactions between sea ice, the atmosphere, and open water. A major goal was the observation of marine cold-air outbreaks (MCAOs), which are typically characterised by the transport of very cold air masses from the ice-covered ocean over a relatively warm water surface and which often affect local and regional weather conditions. During STABLE, MCAOs were observed on 4 d within a period displaying a strongly northward-shifted sea ice edge north of Svalbard and, thus, with an unusually large Whaler's Bay polynya. The observations mainly consisted of in situ measurements from airborne instruments and of measurements by dropsondes. Here, we present the corresponding data set from a total of 15 aircraft vertical profiles and 22 dropsonde releases. Besides an overview of the flight patterns and instrumentation, we provide a detailed presentation of the individual quality-processing mechanisms, which ensure that the data can be used, for example, for model validation. Moreover, we discuss the effects of the individual quality-processing mechanisms, and we briefly present the main characteristics of the MCAOs based on the quality-controlled data. All 37 data series are published on the World Data Center PANGAEA (Lüpkes et al., 2021a, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.936635).

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Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE) Field Campaign Report

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: Atmosphere

Overview of the MOSAiC expedition: Atmosphere

Surface-based observations of cold-air outbreak clouds during the COMBLE field campaign

Observations of marine cold-air outbreaks: a comprehensive data set of airborne and dropsonde measurements from the Springtime Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (STABLE)

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