Aircraft Observation and Simulation of the Supercooled Liquid Water Layer in a Warm Conveyor Belt over North China

This paper studied a snow event over North China on 21 February 2017,using aircraft in-situ data,a Lagrangian analysis tool,and WRF simulations with different microphysical schemes to investigate the supercooled layer of warm conveyor belts(WCBs).Based on the aircraft data,we found a fine vertical structure within clouds in the WCB and highlighted a 1-2 km thin supercooled liquid water layer with a maximum Liquid Water Content(LWC) exceeding0.5 g kg^(-1) during the vertical aircraft observation.Although the main features of thermodynamic profiles were essentially captured by both modeling schemes,the microphysical quantities exhibited large diversity with different microphysics schemes.The conventional Morrison two-moment scheme showed remarkable agreement with in-situ observations,both in terms of the thermodynamic structure and the supercooled liquid water layer.However,the microphysical structure of the WCB clouds,in terms of LWC and IWC,was not apparent in HUJI fast bin scheme.To reduce such uncertainty,future work may focus on improving the representation of microphysics in bin schemes with in-situ data and using similar assumptions for all schemes to isolate the impact of physics.

Identifying Supercooled Liquid Water in Cloud Based on Airborne Observations: Correlation of Cloud Particle Number Concentration with Icing Probability and Proportion of Spherical Particles

Identifying supercooled liquid water(SLW)in clouds is critical for weather modification,aviation safety,and atmospheric radiation calculations.Currently,aircraft identification in the SLW area mostly depends on emprical estimation of cloud particle number concentration(N_(c))in China,and scientific verification and quantitative identification criteria are urgently needed.In this study,the observations are from the Fast Cloud Droplets Probe,Rosemount ice detector(RICE),and Cloud Particle Imager(CP_(i))onboard a King Air aircraft during seven flights in 2018 and 2019 over central and eastern China.Based on this,the correlation among N_(c),the proportion of spherical particles(P_(s)),and the probability of icing(P_(i))in supercooled stratiform and cumulus-stratus clouds is statistically analyzed.Subsequently,this study proposes a method to identify SLW areas using N_(c) in combination with ambient temperature.The reliability of this method is evaluated through the true skill statistics(TSS)and threat score(TS)methods.Numerous airborne observations during the seven flights reveal a strong correlation among Nc,P_(s),and P_(i)at the temperature from 0 to−18°C.When Nc is greater than a certain threshold of 5 cm^(−3),there is always the SLW,i.e.,P_(i)and P_(s)are high.Evaluation results demonstrate that the TSS and TS values for Nc=5 cm^(−3)are higher than those for Nc<5 cm^(−3),and a larger Nc threshold(>5 cm^(−3))corresponds to a higher SLW identification hit rate and a higher SLW content.Therefore,Nc=5 cm^(−3)can be used as the minimum criterion for identifying the SLW in clouds at temperature lower than 0°C.The SLW identification method proposed in this study is especially helpful in common situations where aircraft are equipped with only Nc probes and without the CP_(i)and RICE.

Dissociation behavior of “dry water” C_3H_8 hydrate below ice point:Effect of phase state of unreacted residual water on a mechanism of gas hydrates dissociation

The results on a dissociation behavior of propane hydrates prepared from ＂dry water＂ and contained unreacted residual water in the form of ice inclusions or supercooled liquid water（water solution of gas） were presented for temperatures below 273 K.The temperature ramping or pressure release method was used for the dissociation of propane hydrate samples.It was found that the mechanism of gas hydrate dissociation at temperatures below 273 K depended on the phase state of unreacted water in the hydrate sample.Gas hydrates dissociated into ice and gas if the ice inclusions were in the hydrate sample.The samples of propane hydrates with inclusions of unreacted supercooled water only（without ice inclusions） dissociated into supercooled water and gas below the pressure of the supercooled water-hydrate-gas metastable equilibrium.