The Balance Between Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Nucleation of Ice Clouds Using CAM5/CARMA

We present a modification to the Community Aerosol and Radiation model for Atmospheres (CARMA) sectional ice microphysical model where we have added interactive nucleation of sulfates and heterogeneous nucleation onto dust in order to create a more comprehensive representation of ice nucleation within the CARMA sectional ice model. The Yu et al. (2019, ) convective wet removal fix has also been added in order to correctly transport aerosol within the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) and the 3-mode Modal Aerosols Model (MAM3). In CARMA, the balance of homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation is controlled by the presence of temperatures below 240 K, supersaturation, and the availability of heterogeneous nuclei. Due to a paucity of dust at altitudes above about 7 km, where temperatures over most of the Earth fall below 240 K, cirrus clouds above 7 km nucleate primarily via homogeneous nucleation on aqueous sulfate aerosols in our simulations. Over mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, dust is more common above 7 km during spring through fall, and both heterogeneous nucleation and homogenous freezing occur in our model. Below 7 km heterogeneous nucleation dominates in situ formation of ice. Furthermore, we find an improvement of the representation of in-cloud ice within mixed phase clouds in CAM5/CARMA when compared to simulations with only homogeneous ice nucleation. Other modes of nucleation such as contact nucleation of liquid cloud droplets or liquid cloud droplet freezing on immersion nuclei, were not directly compared with classical depositional heterogeneous nucleation in this study.

Automated summary

We modified the CARMA sectional ice microphysical model by adding interactive nucleation of sulfates and heterogeneous nucleation onto dust for a more comprehensive representation of ice nucleation. In our simulations, cirrus clouds primarily nucleate via homogeneous nucleation on aqueous sulfate aerosols at altitudes above 7 km where temperatures fall below 240 K, while heterogeneous nucleation dominates below 7 km. Our model shows improved representation of in-cloud ice within mixed phase clouds in comparison to simulations with only homogeneous ice nucleation.