Highly Supercooled Cirrus Cloud Water: Confirmation and Climatic Implications

Sassen, Kenneth; Liou, K. N.; Kinne, Stefan; Griffin, Michael K.

doi:10.1126/science.227.4685.411

Cited by 64 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…4 are somewhat different from those of multi-layered clouds or developing cirrus clouds observed by Platt (1977), Sassen (1984) and Sassen et al (1985. The crossing feature of two highly reflective layers is especially interesting.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

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Utilization of the 4m Microwave Telescope for the Measurement of Liquid Water Path in Cirrus Clouds

Imasu¹,

Iwasaka

1992

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Many observations have been made to confirm the existence of liquid water droplets in cirrus clouds and to observe their microphysical properties (Curran and Wu, 1982;Platt, 1977;Sassen, 1984;Sassen et al, 1985.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilization of the 4m Microwave Telescope for the Measurement of Liquid Water Path in Cirrus Clouds

Imasu¹,

Iwasaka

1992

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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“…Lidar observed non-depolarized clouds in the upper troposphere were reported by Sassen et al (1985) and Guasta et al (1998). They suggested that the clouds were composed of super cooled sulfuric acid liquid aerosol particles probably originated from some of volcanic eruptions.…”

Section: Discussion and Summarymentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Since water-clouds are frozen at the low temperatures at this altitude (< 60°C, see section 3), the lidar-observed clouds are usually highly depolarized. There have been only a few reports of the non-depolarized clouds just below tropopause, but the origin of the clouds was unidentified (Sassen et al 1985;Guasta et al 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volcanic Clouds from the 2007 Eruption of Jebel at Tair (Yemen) Detected by Ground Based and Space Borne Lidar

Shibata

Kouketsu

2008

SOLA

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Volcanic clouds from the eruption of Jebel at Tair (south-central Red Sea, Yemen) on 30th September 2007 were observed by ground based lidar at Nagoya, Japan, and also by the space borne lidar CALIOP. The cloud was found as a non-depolarized cloud layer in the upper troposphere by ground based Mie/Depolarization lidar. By tilted lidar observations from ground it was demonstrated that these clouds were not composed of ice particles. Clouds with similar characteristics were also observed by CALIOP. Some evidence confirmed their origin to be the said eruption. The estimated total mass of the cloud particles by lidar-observed data coincides with the estimated sulfuric acid oxidized from SO2 included in the volcanic cloud observed by Aura satellite. All of the clouds were observed at altitudes lower than the cold point tropopause for a week after the eruption. Since then parts of the clouds were observed in the stratosphere, indicating transport from the troposphere to the stratosphere.

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“…Platt studied the optical properties of cirrus clouds in visible and infrared regions, and their temperature dependence (Platt, 1973(Platt, , 1979Platt et al, 1974Platt et al, , 1981Platt et al, , 1987Platt et al, , 1989 . Recently, Sassen observed supercooled liquid water droplets near the base of convective cells embedded in the cirrostratus using polarization lidar and in situ aircraft measurements (Sassen et al, 1985;Sassen et al, 1989b). On the other hand, many numerical models have been developed to simulate these microphysical processes (Heymsfield and Sabin, 1989; Ramaswamy and Detwiler, 1986;Dodd, 1988, 1989a;Cox, 1985a, 1985b;Wesley and Cox, 1988).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Cirrus Clouds Observed by Laser Radar (Lidar) during the Spring of 1987 and the Winter of 1987/88

Imasu¹,

Iwasaka

1991

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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Laser radar observations of cirrus clouds were carried out during the spring of 1987 and the winter of 198788 at Nagoya, Japan. In most cases the integrated backscattering coefficient of the clouds ranged from 0.001(/strad) to 0.1(/strad). The maximum value of the backscattering coefficient of the clouds smoothly decreased with temperature below -40* and -20* in the spring and winter respectively, and the value of the winter coefficient was smaller than that of the spring in the temperature range below -40*. The temperature dependence of cloud depth was different in the two seasons, and the minimum depth was observed near -40*. The lowest cloud temperature was about -75* in the spring, whereas it was limited to near -50* in the winter. Double-layered cirrus clouds were frequently seen during the observation period. The upper layers were located near the tropopause, and the height differences of the two layers were about 2-3 km. Most of them were observed in the spring, and they sometimes continued for longer than a few hours.The relation between cirrus clouds and jet streams was studied. The results showed that the lower limitation of the winter cloud temperature was due to the facts that a jet stream was usually located over Japan and only the clouds below the jet stream could be seen in the winter; the clouds were frequently far below the tropopause with high wind speed area between; and the tropopause on several occasions was located below the jet stream. The winter cirrus clouds were observed around two types of jet stream. One was in the anticyclonically curved area of a meandering jet stream, and the other was in the vicinity of a strong and straight jet stream. On the basis of these results, we discuss the optical properties and generation mechanisms of the cirrus clouds in the vicinity of a jet stream.

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Highly Supercooled Cirrus Cloud Water: Confirmation and Climatic Implications

Cited by 64 publications

References 11 publications

Utilization of the 4m Microwave Telescope for the Measurement of Liquid Water Path in Cirrus Clouds

Utilization of the 4m Microwave Telescope for the Measurement of Liquid Water Path in Cirrus Clouds

Volcanic Clouds from the 2007 Eruption of Jebel at Tair (Yemen) Detected by Ground Based and Space Borne Lidar

Characteristics of Cirrus Clouds Observed by Laser Radar (Lidar) during the Spring of 1987 and the Winter of 1987/88

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