Ice particles in the atmosphere contribute to the largest uncertainty in interpretations of the Earth’s changing energy budget, since the microphysical and radiative properties particularly of cirrus and mixed-phase clouds are poorly understood. Contributions from all aspects related to the research field of ice clouds and water vapor are highly welcome, as observational, laboratory, remote sensing and modelling studies. Topics of interest are formation, life cycle, microphysical and radiative properties, shapes, sizes, coverage and variability of ice particles for mixed-phase as well as ice clouds. The concentration of ice nucleating particles (INP) in the atmosphere as well as laboratory and chamber studies of their properties are a focus of this session. We invite contributions from aircraft missions such as ML-CIRRUS (Europe, 2014); ACRIDICON-CHUVA (Brazil, 2014) or RACEPAC (Canada, 2014), chamber inter-comparison studies such as FIN-1 and 2, field inter-comparisons (FIN-3), laboratory investigations, field measurements as well as modelling results from projects such as INUIT or others.

Invited talk:
"A Marine Biogenic Source of Atmospherically Relevant Ice Nucleating Particles"
by Dr. Theodor W. Wilson, University of Leeds, GB