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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-3112</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>On the Role of Atmospheric Waves in Governing the Persistence of Thin Cirrus Clouds in the Tropical Tropopause Layer</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Corcos</surname>
<given-names>Milena</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kärcher</surname>
<given-names>Bernd</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-4980</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lesigne</surname>
<given-names>Thomas</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7064-5030</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Podglajen</surname>
<given-names>Aurélien</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9768-3511</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Jensen</surname>
<given-names>Eric J.</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>NorthWest Research Associates, Boulder, CO, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Wessling, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>LATMOS/IPSL, Sorbonne Université, UVSQ, CNRS, Paris, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>LMD/IPSL, École Polytechnique - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Sorbonne Université, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>10</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>22</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Milena Corcos et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3112/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3112/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3112/egusphere-2026-3112.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3112/egusphere-2026-3112.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Thin tropical cirrus clouds influence the radiative and stratospheric water vapor budgets, yet the processes controlling their persistence remain poorly constrained. Here, we investigate the impact of multiscale wave-driven vertical wind speed and temperature fluctuations on thin tropical cirrus lifetime using a Lagrangian microphysical model initialized from lidar observations obtained during the Strateole-2 campaigns. The model represents the evolution of ice crystal populations under stochastic high-frequency gravity wave forcing and an idealized low-frequency inertia gravity wave. Our results show that cirrus lifetime is controlled by a competition between stabilization through multiscale cooling fluctuations and complete sublimation by rare, high amplitude warming events due to gravity waves. This introduces a threshold behavior: if some ice crystals can grow large enough without being dissipated in the first hours of the lifetime, they become less sensitive to complete sublimation and enter a stabilization regime in which sedimentation determines the cloud lifetime. Stronger gravity-wave activity shifts this stabilization regime toward larger crystal sizes and generally shortens cirrus lifetime. Lower frequency waves modulate this evolution by setting the slowly varying background temperature. Cooling phases promote crystal growth and favor long-lived cirrus, while warming phases enhance rapid cloud decay. The simulated lifetime distribution reproduces the strongly skewed distribution of observed thin tropical cirrus lifetimes, including a non negligible population of clouds which persists longer than 12 h, and dominates the total cloud coverage.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Science Foundation</funding-source>
<award-id>2231667</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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