Assessing Mixed-Phase Conditions during the ICE GENESIS Snow Measurement Campaign

Abstract

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">In the framework of the European ICE GENESIS project (https://www.ice-genesis.eu/), a field experiment was conducted in the Swiss Jura in January 2021 in order to characterize snow microphysical properties and document snow conditions for aviation industry purposes. Complementary to companion papers reporting on snow properties, this study presents an investigation on mixed-phase conditions sampled during the ICE GENESIS field campaign. Using in situ measurement of the liquid and total water content, the ice mass fraction is calculated and serves as a criteria to identify mixed-phase conditions. In the end, mixed phase conditions were identified in almost 30 % of the 3800 km long cloud samples included in the ICE GENESIS dataset. The data suggests that the occurrence of mixed-phase does not clearly depend on temperature in the 0 to -10 °C range, but varies significantly from one cloud system to another. The distribution of mixed phase and liquid only spatial scales cascades from 100 m (instrumental resolution limit) to 12 km, existing most of the time as pockets of few hundreds of meters embedded in larger cloudy areas.</div></div>