Simulating Observations of Southern Ocean Clouds and Implications for Climate

Southern Ocean (SO) clouds are critical for climate prediction. Yet, previous global climate models failed to accurately represent cloud phase distributions in this observation-sparse region. In this study, data from the Southern Ocean Clouds, Radiation, Aerosol, Transport Experimental Study (SOCRATES) experiment is compared to constrained simulations from a global climate model (the Community Atmosphere Model, CAM). Nudged versions of CAM are found to reproduce many of the features of detailed in-situ observations, such as cloud location, cloud phase and boundary layer structure. The simulation in the latest versions of the model has improved its representation of SO clouds with adjustments to the ice nucleation and cloud microphysics schemes that permit more supercooled liquid. Initial comparisons between modeled and observed hydrometeor size distributions suggest that the modeled hydrometeor size distributions are close to observed distributions, which is remarkable given the scale difference between m...