Cold and dry Arctic air masses moving from sea ice southward over the open ocean rapidly heat up, moisten, and form clouds. Diabatic heating and moistening rates in such marine cold air outbreaks (CAOs) are key to understanding their dynamics. While state-of-the-art atmospheric reanalysis products are commonly used to estimate these rates, the uncertainties of these reanalysis data sets especially in 4-dimensional space required to calculate them remain largely unspecified. Therefore, we present an analysis based on actual quasi-Lagrangian observations, which offer direct insights into these processes and which were conducted during the HALO-(AC)3 Arctic airborne campaign. From the measurements during a case study of a CAO on 01 April 2022, a maximum moistening and diabatic heating larger than 0.25 g kg-1h-1 and 6 K h-1, respectively, were deduced. Clouds forming within 30 minutes of the off-ice drift then intensified the vertical mixing. In the later stages of the CAO, maximum increases of solar albedo of around 0.03-0.06 h-1 were observed. We suggest that such data collected in a dedicated Lagrangian framework will serve as invaluable input for the benchmarking of numerical weather-prediction models and modern reanalysis products.

Marine cold-air outbreaks (MCAOs) strongly affect the Arctic water cycle and, thus, climate through large-scale air mass transformations. The description of air mass transformations is still challenging, partly because previous observations do not resolve fine scales, particularly for the initial development of an MCAO, and due to a lack of information about the thermodynamical evolution starting over sea ice and continuing over open ocean and associated cloud microphysical properties. Therefore, we focus on the crucial initial development within the first 200 km over open water for two case studies in April 2022 during the HALO-(AC)3 campaign (named after the High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft and Transregional Collaborative Research Centre ArctiC Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and SurfaCe Processes and Feedback Mechanisms (AC)3). The two events, just 3 d apart, belong to a particularly long-lasting MCAO and occurred under relatively similar thermodynamic conditions. Even though both events were stronger than the climatological 75th percentile of that period, the first event was characterized by colder air masses from the central Arctic which led to an MCAO index twice as high compared to that of the second event.

The evolution and structure were assessed by flight legs crossing the Fram Strait multiple times at the same location, sampling perpendicularly to the cloud streets. Airborne remote sensing and in situ measurements were used to build statistical descriptions of the boundary layer, dynamics, clouds, and precipitation. For this purpose, we established a novel approach based solely on radar reflectivity measurements to detect roll circulation that forms cloud streets. The two cases exhibit different properties of clouds, riming, and roll circulations, though the width of the roll circulation is similar. For the stronger event, cloud tops are higher; more liquid-topped clouds exist; the liquid water path, mean radar reflectivity, precipitation rate, and precipitation occurrence have increased; and riming is active. The variability in rime mass has the same horizontal scale as the roll circulation, implying the importance of roll circulation on cloud microphysics and precipitation.

Boundary layer and cloud properties evolve with distance over open water, as seen by, e.g., cloud top height rising. In general, cloud streets form after traveling 15 km over open water. After 20 km, this formation enhances cloud cover to just below 100 %. After around 30 km, precipitation forms, though for the weaker event, the development of precipitation is shifted to larger distances. Within our analysis, we developed statistical descriptions of various parameters (i) within the roll circulation and (ii) as a function of distance over open water. These detailed cloud metrics are particularly well suited for the evaluation of cloud-resolving models close to the sea ice edge to evaluate their representation of dynamics and microphysics.

How air masses transform during meridional transport into and out of the Arctic is not well represented by numerical models. The airborne field campaign HALO-(AC) ³ applied the High Altitude and Long-range Research Aircraft (HALO) within the framework of the collaborative research project on Arctic amplification (AC) ³ to address this question by providing a comprehensive observational basis. The campaign took place from 7 March to 12 April 2022 in the North Atlantic sector of the Arctic, a main gateway of atmospheric transport into and out of the Arctic. Here, we investigate to which degree the meteorological and sea ice conditions during the campaign align with the long-term climatology (1979–2022). For this purpose, we use the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis v5 (ERA5), satellite data, and measurements at Ny-Ålesund, including atmospheric soundings. The observations and reanalysis data revealed two distinct periods with different weather conditions during HALO-(AC) ³: the campaign started with a warm period (11–20 March 2022) where strong southerly winds prevailed that caused poleward transport of warm and moist air masses, so-called moist and warm air intrusions (WAIs). Two WAI events were identified as atmospheric rivers (ARs), which are narrow bands of strong moisture transport. These warm and moist air masses caused the highest measured 2 m temperatures (5.5 °C) and daily precipitation rates (42 mm d ⁻¹) at Ny-Ålesund for March since the beginning of the record (1993). Over the sea ice northwest of Svalbard, ERA5 indicated record-breaking rainfall. After the passage of a strong cyclone on 21 March 2022, a cold period followed. Northerly winds advected cold air into the Fram Strait, causing marine cold air outbreaks (MCAOs) until the end of the campaign. This second phase included one of the longest MCAO events found in the ERA5 record (19 d). On average, the entire campaign period was warmer than the climatological mean due to the strong influence of the ARs. In the Fram Strait, the sea ice concentration was well within the climatological variability over the entire campaign duration. However, during the warm period, a large polynya opened northeast of Svalbard, untypical for this season. Compared to previous airborne field campaigns focusing on the evolution of (mixed-phase) clouds, a larger variety of MCAO conditions was observed during HALO-(AC) ³.

Arctic air masses undergo intense transformations when moving southward from closed sea ice to warmer open waters in marine cold-Air outbreaks (CAOs). Due to the lack of measurements of diabatic heating and moisture uptake rates along CAO flows, studies often depend on atmospheric reanalysis output. However, the uncertainties connected to those datasets remain unclear. Here, we present height-resolved airborne observations of diabatic heating, moisture uptake, and cloud evolution measured in a quasi-Lagrangian manner. The investigated CAO was observed on 1 April 2022 during the HALO-(AC)3 campaign. Shortly after passing the sea-ice edge, maximum diabatic heating rates over 6ĝ€¯Kh-1 and moisture uptake over 0.3ĝ€¯gkg-1h-1 were measured near the surface. Clouds started forming and vertical mixing within the deepening boundary layer intensified. The quasi-Lagrangian observations are compared with the fifth-generation global reanalysis (ERA5) and the Copernicus Arctic Regional Reanalysis (CARRA). Compared to these observations, the mean absolute errors of ERA5 versus CARRA data are 14ĝ€¯% higher for air temperature over sea ice (1.14ĝ€¯K versus 1.00ĝ€¯K) and 62ĝ€¯% higher for specific humidity over ice-free ocean (0.112ĝ€¯gkg-1 versus 0.069ĝ€¯gkg-1). We relate these differences to issues with the representation of the marginal ice zone and corresponding surface fluxes in ERA5, as well as the cloud scheme producing excess liquid-bearing, precipitating clouds, which causes a too-dry marine boundary layer. CARRA's high spatial resolution and demonstrated higher fidelity towards observations make it a promising candidate for further studies on Arctic air mass transformations.