Atmospheric ice nucleating particle measurements and parameterization representative for Indian region

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2021.105487Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Measured INP concentration online using a Continuous Flow Diffusion Chamber.

  • Heterogeneous ice nucleation experiments were conducted at mixed-phase cloud conditions.

  • An empirical equation was formulated to represent INP using supercooled temperature and coarse mode aerosol concentration.

  • The model results using new parameterization helped to simulate the rainfall amount better as compared to old formulations.

Abstract

Atmospheric ice nucleating particle (INP) concentration measurements over the Indian region are very sparse; hence more observations are required to represent heterogeneous ice nucleation processes in the regional cloud models for better accuracy. In this work, the INP ability and size of ambient aerosol particles at a tropical high altitude station were studied. Ice nucleation experiments were conducted at temperatures between −25 and −34 °C and water supersaturation conditions up to 102%. The mean INP concentrations varied from 1.1 to 9.5 L−1 and correlated well with coarse mode aerosol particle concentration (> 1 μm). Higher INP concentrations were observed when the aerosol loading was influenced by the regions such as Mumbai metro city, Gujarat, Thar desert region, and the Arabian sea region close to the Oman coast. An empirical equation was formulated to represent the INP concentrations using supercooled temperature and coarse mode aerosol particle concentration. The sensitivity of new heterogeneous ice nucleation parameterization was tested against literature INP parameterizations using Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model results show that the new parameterization helped to simulate the rainfall amount better as compared to the old formulations. Better reproduction of convection and possible reduction of biases in the formation of cloud ice in the cloud-resolving model improved the model accuracy. These results show the importance of implementing new INP parameterization in a real-time forecast model to improve the regional climate model forecasting.

Introduction

The clouds containing ice particles create significant changes in radiative properties, regional weather, and climate (e.g., Lohmann et al. 2016; Hong and Liu 2015). Ice nuclei particles (INPs) also play a critical role in modifying the cloud microphysical processes, precipitation, weather, etc. (e.g., Creamean et al. 2013). For a better representation of these processes in the cloud model, INP properties of atmospheric aerosols are required, and they need to be parameterized to incorporate in the numerical models (e.g., Cantrell and Heymsfield 2005; Baker and Peter 2008). Previous studies suggested that INPs in the atmosphere induces ice crystal formation in the cloud which changes cloud characteristics, its convective strength, and further modify the cloud electrification process (Tao et al., 2012; Creamean et al. 2013; Boose et al. 2016; Diehl and Grützun 2018). Yang et al. (2020) have reported that the cloud charge density will be increased with an elevated INP concentration. Therefore, INP concentration plays a significant role in modifying cloud properties and the electrification process; and suggested that these effects should be considered in cloud models.

At supercooled temperature, the nucleation of ice can occur through homogeneous and heterogeneous ice nucleation modes. Homogeneous ice nucleation can take place at temperatures below −37 °C, in the absence of INP. However, at temperatures warmer than −37 °C, heterogeneous ice nucleation takes place in the presence of INP. There are four different heterogeneous ice nucleation modes, namely deposition nucleation, immersion freezing, contact freezing, and condensation freezing (Vali et al. 2015). Ice formation by deposition of vapour directly on INP is termed as deposition nucleation. Condensation freezing occurs when water condenses on to the INP surface before freezing. Immersion freezing happens when an INP gets immersed in a supercooled droplet. Freezing of supercooled droplets upon contact with INP is termed as contact freezing.

In the atmosphere the concentration of INP is very low. Approximately 1 in 106 particles can act as INP if the temperature is warmer than −37 °C (DeMott et al. 2010; Patade et al. 2014; Welti et al. 2018; Jiang et al. 2014; Anil Kumar et al., 2020). The ratio observed is almost the same around the globe; also, INP concentrations were highly variable with space and time (DeMott et al. 2010). The important natural sources of INPs are volcanic eruptions, oceans, the debris of vegetation, and deserts, whereas important anthropogenic aerosols are particles generated from agricultural practices, transportation, biomass burning, industrial processes, and deforestation (Kanji et al. 2017; Hazra et al., 2016). Mineral dust particles are also identified as the most important INP type because of their effective ice nucleating ability (Kanji et al. 2017; Hoose and Möhler, 2012; Ladino Moreno et al. 2013; Murray et al. 2012). Previous studies have related variation of INP concentration with temperature (Cooper 1986; Fletcher 1962; Jiang et al. 2015), and with supersaturation with respect to ice (SSi) (Meyers et al. 1992; López and Ávila, 2013; Patade et al. 2014). However, the size and the number of aerosol particles can also alter the formation of ice crystals in the atmosphere (DeMott et al. 2010; Jiang et al. 2016).

In order to reduce the uncertainty in the rainfall prediction over the Indian region, it is necessary to improve the ice nucleation formulations in regional climate models (Hazra et al., 2016). The information on the INP over the Indian region is lacking to incorporate in the models. The available schemes which have been developed for a particular geographical region will offset prediction over other regions. The incorporation of regional ice-phase information in the present models will improve predictability. The increased understanding resulting from our proposed work of such a key atmospheric process that governs the atmospheric ice formation would directly benefit the cloud microphysical parameterization in the regional climate model for the Indian region. Here, we determined INP properties of aerosol particles and parameterized the INP activity. Next, we performed the aerosol-cloud interaction model studies to understand the impact of new parameterization on cloud properties to simulate precipitation over the study area. In this study, aerosol size distributions and INP concentrations were simultaneously measured for three seasons. This work is aimed to measure ambient INP, aerosol particle concentration, and to establish an empirical equation to represent the INP concentrations using temperature and coarse mode aerosol particle concentration representative for the tropical Indian region. The study also aims to carry out sensitivity experiments to test the fidelity of newly developed formulation for convective clouds over India and compare it with known and widely used formulations (Fletcher 1962; DeMott et al. 2010).

Section snippets

Measurement site

Ambient INP concentrations were measured at high-altitude cloud physics laboratory (HACPL), Mahabaleshwar (17.92°N, 73.66°E, 1384 m AMSL), situated in the Western Ghats region of state Maharashtra, India, operated by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). The observational site is a small hill town surrounded by dense vegetation and scattered small settlements and resorts. Mahabaleshwar receives heavy rainfall during monsoon season (mean seasonal rainfall is 5000 mm), from where some

INP concentration

INP and ambient aerosol particle concentrations were measured at HACPL. INP concentrations were measured at temperatures (−25, −30 and −34 °C) relevant for mixed-phase cloud condition. Fig. 2 shows the variation of INP concentration at different temperatures. The average concentrations observed were 1.1 ± 1.1, 3.9 ± 4.8 and 9.5 ± 5.25 L−1 at −25, −30, and −34 °C, respectively. INP concentration was measured from January to July 2019, spanning three seasons: Winter (Jan–Feb), Pre-monsoon

Summary and conclusions

Variation of ambient INP and aerosol particle concentration were measured from a tropical high altitude station. The data were collected from January to July 2019, spanning three seasons: winter, pre-monsoon and monsoon. The observational and modeling results from this work were presented, and the following conclusions were derived.

  • 1)

    INP concentrations were measured at three different heterogeneous ice nucleation temperatures −25, −30, −34 °C and RHw 101, 102, 102% conditions, respectively. The

Author statement

V. Anil Kumar conducted experiments and analysed the data, written initial draft as a part of his Doctoral thesis. Anupam Hazra and Greeshma Mohan implemented the ice nuclei parametrization developed from the above observations in ARW model and studied the sensitivity of this model with earlier formulation. Subrata Mukherjee and Leena contributed concentrated weighted trajectory analysis using HYSPLIT Model data sets. G. Pandithurai, Gourihar Kulkarni and D.S.V.V.D. Prasad supervised the above

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the team members of HACPL of IITM. The authors are grateful to the Director, IITM for support and encouragement. IITM and HACPL are fully funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt. of India. We are also thankful to Dr. Andre Welti (Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finland) and Dr. Paul J. DeMott (Colorado State University, Colorado) for sharing their data. The authors acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory for the provision of the Hybrid Single

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