Transport of continental particulate over the Labrador Sea and entrainment are important pathways for glaciation of remote marine clouds

Abstract

Marine Arctic clouds greatly influence the radiative balance across the Arctic region and their effectiveness at scattering radiation changes considerably depending on cloud phase. Glaciation of these clouds relies on the presence of ice nucleating particles, which are often limited in number, so often clouds may be liquid even at temperatures well below 0°C. As the Arctic region warms, cloud feedbacks may accelerate change or lessen absorbed solar radiation. Understanding aerosol-cloud interactions and the sources and pathways of aerosol particles across the Arctic region is central to improving our knowledge of these poorly understood processes. In this paper, aircraft observations of single particle chemical and physical properties are presented and the composition of cloud residuals in both warm and glaciated clouds are examined using a single-particle laser ablation aerosol particle mass spectrometer (LAAPToF). In cloud, the LAAPToF sampled behind a Counterflow Virtual Impactor (CVI) to detect cloud particle residuals, separated into liquid, mixed phase and ice clouds using in-situ observations of the fractional ice water content. Three different air mass regimes were sampled: northerly winds in both the marine boundary layer and the lower free troposphere; westerly winds from Canada in both the marine boundary layer and the free troposphere and periods when the boundary layer winds were northerly but the air immediately above the boundary layer was from continental Canada. When the air in the boundary layer and free troposphere was from the north, most clouds were in the liquid phase, however, considerably more glaciation was observed when the air immediately above the boundary layer clouds was from Canada regardless of the flow direction in the boundary layer. Sea salt particles dominate the observed out of cloud aerosol particle population and liquid cloud particle residuals. However, in the detected mixed phase and ice cloud particle residuals dust and bioaerosol particles were substantial in number. Since these are known to be effective ice-nucleating particles, the observations suggest that long range transport of continental air and entrainment is an important pathway for the supply of aerosol to the remote Arctic boundary layer.