Simulations of primary and secondary ice production during an Arctic mixed-phase cloud case from the NASCENT campaign

Abstract. The Arctic is the fastest warming environment on Earth and the role of clouds in this warming is undisputed. The representation of Arctic clouds and their phase distribution, i.e. the amount of ice and supercooled water, influences predictions of future Arctic warming. Therefore, it is essential that cloud phase is correctly captured by models in order to accurately predict the future Arctic climate. Ice crystal formation in clouds happens through ice nucleation (primary ice production) and ice multiplication (secondary ice production). In common weather and climate models, rime-splintering is the only secondary ice production process included. In addition, prescribed number concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei or cloud droplets and ice-nucleating particles are often overestimated in Arctic environments by standard model configurations. This can lead to a misrepresentation of the phase distribution and precipitation formation in Arctic mixed-phase clouds, with important implications for the Arctic surface energy budget. During the Ny-Ålesund Aerosol Cloud Experiment (NASCENT) a holographic probe mounted on a tethered balloon took in-situ measurements of ice crystal and cloud droplet number and mass concentrations in Svalbard, Norway, during fall 2019 and spring 2020. In this study, we choose one case study from this campaign showing evidence of strong secondary ice production and use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to simulate it at a high vertical and spatial resolution. We test the performance of different microphysical parametrizations and apply a new state-of-the-art secondary ice parametrization. We find that the agreement with observations highly depends on the prescribed cloud condensation nuclei/cloud droplet and ice-nucleating particle concentration and requires an enhancement of secondary ice production processes. Lowering mass mixing ratio thresholds for rime splintering inside the Morrison microphysics scheme is crucial for enabling secondary ice production and thereby matching observations for the right reasons. The latter is a prerequisite for reliable simulations of Arctic mixed-phase cloud responses to future temperature- or aerosol perturbations.