Lidar observation of spherical particles in a −65° cold cirrus observed above Sodankyla (Finland) during S.E.S.A.M.E.

Abstract The absence of LIDAR depolarization in a polar cirrus observed above Sodankyla (Finland) showed the presence of spherical particles at −65°C. The presence of pure liquid water is excluded, since homogeneous freezing should occur at or above −40°C. The cirrus layer was detected at the tropopause, during the horizontal and vertical advection above northern Scandinavia of warm and wet oceanic air. Two alternative explanations are suggested, the first one involving the presence of large, deliquescent tropospheric CN, freezing at very low temperature, and the second one involving the presence of metastable, spherical ice-particles produced in the fast adiabatic cooling of the airmasses. The second hypothesis is less reasonable because the absence of depolarized LIDAR signal implies a strict cylindrical symmetry in the particles, a symmetry that is difficult to maintain during the freezing process.