Ice cloud

Short description: Atmospheric phenomenon

File:Iridescent clouds over Gale Crater (enhanced color) (54302292059).jpgA iridescent cloud cover Gale crater. Ice particles infused the cloud caused this effect through diffraction.

An ice cloud is a colloid of ice particles dispersed in air. Cirrus and noctilucent clouds on Earth contain ice particles.[1] On Earth, ice clouds are distributed globally covering around 50% of the Earths surface.[2][3] The term has been used to refer to clouds of both water ice and carbon dioxide ice on Mars. Such clouds can be sufficiently large and dense to cast shadows on the Martian surface.[4]

Around the tropics at altitudes of 5 to 15 kilometers, the most frequently observed ice clouds are optically thin. Thicker ice clouds occur frequently in tropical convective areas and along storm tracks at midlatitudes.[2]

## Contents

* 1 Effects
* 1.1 Heat regulation
* 1.2 Water cycle
* 2 Study
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## Effects

Ice clouds play a crucial role in a variety of processes such as the heat balance of Earth and global water cycle.

### Heat regulation

They play a crucial role in its radiation balance. They can cool the atmosphere by reflecting solar radiation back to space and warm it up by blocking outgoing thermal radiation. Their effects on the climate varies significantly depending on their location causing heating when in the upper troposphere of the tropics while causing strong cooling in lower altitudes.[2]

### Water cycle

They also play a crucial role in the global water cycle being involved in processes such as latent heat release, precipitation and radiative forcing.[5]

## Study

Despite their crucial importance to the energy balance of Earth, ice clouds remain poorly studied. Part of the difficulties of studying them is due to the many complexities and lathe variety of factors that influences them such as temperature, humidity, vertical wind and others. Several models have been made to accurately calculate the properties of ice clouds.[5][3] However there are nanosatellites such as IceCube that are study the global atmospheric ice content and its effects on Earths climate.[6] Other satellites such as CloudSat and the CALIPSO are used to study ice clouds.[2]

## See also

* IceCube (spacecraft), a satellite used to map ice clouds

## References

1. ↑ Tom Freeman (December 8, 2009). "New satellite to measure ice cloud particles could provide valuable new climate data". http://www.projects.eu.com/news/new_satellite_to_measure_ice_cloud_particles_could_provide_valuable_new_climate_data. Retrieved 2009-12-20.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Hong, Yulan (October 2017). "Ice Cloud Properties And Their Radiative Effects: Global Observations And Modeling" (in en). Ph.D. Thesis. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PhDT.......155H/abstract.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Yi, Bingqi (2022-06-22). "Diverse cloud radiative effects and global surface temperature simulations induced by different ice cloud optical property parameterizations" (in en). Scientific Reports 12 (1): 10539. doi:10.1038/s41598-022-14608-w. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 9217801. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14608-w.
4. ↑ "ESA Portal - Ice clouds put Mars in the shade". European Space Agency. 16 January 2008. http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM1DV3MDAF_index_0.html. Retrieved 2009-12-20.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Wu, Banghai; Wang, Yu; Fan, Xiaoye; Liu, Shi; Fu, Yixiao (2024-11-01). "A mixing scheme of ice particle models for global ice cloud measurements". Remote Sensing of Environment 313: 114356. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2024.114356. ISSN 0034-4257. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425724003821.
6. ↑ Mohr, Karen. "IceCube | Earth" (in en). https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/climate/projects/icecube-0.

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