HR: 1330h
AN: A32B-0135    [PDF]
TI: Observational Evidence Against Mountain Wave Generation of Ice Clouds Leading to the Formation of NAT Clouds in Early December 1999 Within the Arctic Vortex
AU: * Pagan, K L
EM: pagan@cloud1.arc.nasa.gov
AF: San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132 United States
AU: Tabazadeh, A
EM: Azadeh.Tabazadeh-1@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245-5, Moffett Field, CA 94035 United States
AU: Drdla, K
EM: Katja.Drdla-1@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245-5, Moffett Field, CA 94035 United States
AU: Hervig, M E
EM: m.e.hervig@gats-inc.com
AF: G and A Technical Software, Inc., P.O. Box 449, Driggs, ID 83422 United States
AU: Eckermann, S D
EM: eckerman@uap2.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, Code 7646, 4555 Overlook Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Browell, E V
EM: e.v.browell@larc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 401A, Hampton, VA 23681 United States
AU: Legg, M J
EM: legg@pixels.arc.nasa.gov
AF: Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, 560 Third St. West, Sonoma, CA 95476 United States
AU: Foschi, P G
EM: tfoschi@sfsu.edu
AF: San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132 United States
AB: A number of recently published papers suggest that mountain wave (or lee wave) activity in the stratosphere, producing temperatures below the ice frost point, may be the primary source of large NAT particles. We use thermal infrared radiance measurements from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instruments on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting satellites to map out regions of ice clouds produced by mountain wave cloud activity inside the Arctic vortex. Lidar observations from three DC-8 flights in early December 1999 show the presence of solid polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) Type Ia particles. By using back trajectories and superimposing the position maps on the AVHRR cloud imagery, we show that the observed solid Type Ia PSC particles could not have originated at locations of high mountain wave cloud activity. We also show that Mountain Wave Forecast Model 2.0 (MWFM-2) gridbox-averaged hemispheric hindcasts from the same time period are in agreement with the AVHRR data. Our results show that ice cloud formation in mountain wave clouds cannot explain how at least three large-scale solid HNO3 PSC structures were formed in the stratosphere in early December 1999.
DE: 0320 Cloud physics and chemistry
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1640 Remote sensing
DE: 3329 Mesoscale meteorology
DE: 3349 Polar meteorology
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting