- 1Department of Environmental Physics and Meteorology, School of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- 2Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts (LAPI), School of Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- 3Leipzig Institute for Meteorology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- 4Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory (LTE), School of Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- 5Center for Studies of Air Quality and Climate Change, Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Patras, Greece
- 6Environmental Radioactivity & Aerosol technology for atmospheric & Climate impacT Lab (ENRACT), Institute of Nuclear and Radiological Sciences and Technology, Energy and Safety, National Centre of Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Ag. Paraskevi, Greece
- 7Department of Environmental Science, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
- 8Laser Remote Sensing Unit (LRSU), Physics Department, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- 9Finnish Meteorological Institute, Kuopio, Finland
In recent years, there has been a breakthrough in the identification and description of various secondary ice production (SIP) mechanisms that affect mixed-phase clouds. However, SIP is in general not described well in climate and mesoscale models, which leads to notable biases in the representation of warm mixed-phase clouds in terms of ice content, ice number concentration and cloud structure. In this study, the Integrated Community Limited Area Modelling System (ICLAMS) has been utilized to examine the formation and evolution of wintertime orographic clouds over Mt. Helmos, Greece. ICLAMS is a special version of the Regional Atmospheric Modelling System (RAMS). In addition to the Hallett-Mossop process, already included in the model, two additional SIP mechanisms are implemented, a) collisional break-up of ice particles and b) droplet shattering. Model results are evaluated against in-situ and remote sensing observations collected during the CleanCloud CHOPIN campaign (https://go.epfl.ch/chopin-campaign) at Mt. Helmos in the Peloponnese, Greece during Fall 2024 to Spring 2025. Remote sensing (wind lidar and cloud radar) data are used to evaluate model performance, through the application of forward operators (cloud radar simulator) and comparison with radar reflectivity and turbulence parameters. The mesoscale model simulations indicate that SIP enhances aggregation and results in clouds with increased ice crystal number concentrations, aligning more closely with observed distributions. Among the SIP mechanisms, collisional break-up is identified as the dominant contributor to simulated SIP rates, underscoring its critical role in accurately representing orographic mixed-phase clouds.
How to cite: Chaniotis, I., Georgakaki, P., Patlakas, P., Foskinis, R., Clerx, N., Molina, C., Gini, M., Zieger, P., Eleftheriadis, K., Berne, A., Papayannis, A., Komppula, M., Flocas, H., and Nenes, A.: Investigating Secondary Ice Production effects on wintertime orographic clouds using the Regional Atmospheric Modelling System (RAMS), EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17259, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17259, 2025.
