Results of 3-dim Modeling of the Summer Upper Mesosphere Ice Cloud

Details Results of 3-dim Modeling of the Summer Upper Mesosphere Ice Cloud Results of 3-dim Modeling of the Summer Upper Mesosphere Ice Cloud

May 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusmsa21a..04v&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #SA21A-04

Physics

3337 Numerical Modeling And Data Assimilation, 0320 Cloud Physics And Chemistry, 0340 Middle Atmosphere: Composition And Chemistry

Scientific paper

We report on recent results of our ongoing effort to model the behavior of (a) individual icy particles in the mesopause region and (b) PMSE and NLC layers as a whole under mid-summer conditions. For this we initialize in our COMMA/IAP model the polar mesopause region with an ensemble of 20 million condensation nuclei and study the formation, time-dependent 3-dim Langrangian transport, and sublimation of icy particles in the mesopause region. The model predicts that North of about 58oN latitude, a region exists near the mesopause which is permanently filled with icy particles. These particles form a "summer upper mesosphere ice cloud" (SUMIC). The icy particles residing in the SUMIC participate in the formation of PMSE layers. If of sufficient size, they also produce NLC layers. We present different types of trajectories which the icy particles can take within and out of the SUMIC. Both in meridional and vertical direction, the SUMIC extends to near the 150 K contour surrounding in all directions the polar mesopause region. In meridional direction this border is near the 147 K isotherm which falls in the latitude band of (58o +/- 2o)N latitude. The 2o variation is caused by the tides. In vertical direction, the situation is somewhat different as the tidal variation of NLC altitudes can be as large as the mean thickness of the NLC layer. In our model, the zonal mean temperature of the lower border of the SUMIC falls close to 152 K. An important process within and near the SUMIC is the interaction of the gas and ice phases of the ambient water. This interaction leads to a pronounced freeze-drying of the region near 88 km altitude, where water vapor mixing ratios below 0.05 ppm are predicted by our model. At the same time, it leads near 82 km to an increase in water vapor mixing ratio up to 8 ppm, well beyond its unperturbed value. Our model predicts, however, this increase to be strongly tidally modulated.

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