ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

How Are Mixed-Phase Clouds Mixed? | JoVE Visualize

Home
Research Domains
Earth Sciences

How Are Mixed-Phase Clouds Mixed?

Alexei Korolev¹, Jason Milbrandt¹

¹Environment and Climate Change Canada Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate Toronto ON Canada.

Geophysical Research Letters|October 17, 2022

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

Mixed-phase clouds exhibit intermittent spatial inhomogeneity across various scales. Their phase composition, including ice, liquid, and mixed regions, becomes more frequent as spatial scales decrease, impacting climate models.

Area of Science:

Atmospheric Science
Cloud Physics
Climate Modeling

Background:

Mixed-phase clouds significantly influence regional and global precipitation and radiation transfer.
Understanding their spatial inhomogeneity is crucial for accurate climate and weather predictions.

Purpose of the Study:

To analyze the spatial inhomogeneity of mixed-phase clouds.
To investigate the scale-dependent characteristics of cloud phase composition.

Main Methods:

Utilized an extensive dataset from airborne in situ observations.
Analyzed continuous segments of ice, liquid, and mixed-phase cloud regions.
Examined spatial scales ranging from 100 km down to 100 m.

Main Results:

Mixed-phase cloud composition is highly intermittent.
The frequency of ice, liquid, and mixed-phase regions increases with decreasing spatial scales.
Spatial scale distributions exhibit distinct power-law dependencies.

Conclusions:

Provides insights into the morphology of mixed-phase clouds.
Highlights the importance of subgrid inhomogeneity for weather and climate models.
Suggests improvements for representing mixed-phase cloud processes in numerical models.

Keywords:

mixed‐phase clouds

Atmospheric Sciences

How Are Mixed-phase Clouds Mixed?

spatial inhomogeneity