Publication Date
9-12-2025
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
52
Issue
18
DOI
10.1029/2025GL115946
Abstract
Mixed-phase clouds contribute to substantial uncertainties in global climate models due to their complex microphysical properties. Former model evaluations almost exclusively rely on satellite observations to assess cloud phase distributions globally. This study investigated mixed-phase cloud properties using near global-scale in situ observation data sets from 14 flight campaigns in combination with collocated output from a global climate model. The Southern Hemisphere (SH) shows significantly higher occurrence frequencies and higher mass fractions of supercooled liquid water than Northern Hemisphere (NH) based on observations at 0.2 and 100 km horizontal scales. Such hemispheric asymmetry is not captured by the model. The model also consistently overestimates liquid water content (LWC) in all cloud phases but shows ice water content (IWC) biases that vary with phase. Key processes contributing to model biases in phase partition can be identified through the combination of evaluation of phase frequency, liquid mass fraction, LWC and IWC.
Funding Number
DE-SC0023155
Funding Sponsor
U.S. Department of Energy
Keywords
cloud phase partition, E3SMv1/EAMv1, global climate model, hemispheric comparisons, in situ aircraft observations, mixed-phase clouds
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Department
Research Foundation; Meteorology and Climate Science
Recommended Citation
Ching An Yang, Minghui Diao, Yang Shi, and Xiaohong Liu. "Hemispheric Asymmetry of Phase Partition in Mixed-Phase Clouds Based on Near Global-Scale Airborne Observations" Geophysical Research Letters (2025). https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL115946
