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Article Dans Une Revue Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Année : 2012

The evolution of microphysical and optical properties of an A380 contrail in the vortex phase

Résumé

A contrail from a large-body A380 aircraft at cruise in the humid upper troposphere has been probed with in-situ instruments onboard the DLR research aircraft Falcon. The contrail was sampled during 700 s measurement time at contrail ages of about 1-4 min. The contrail was in the vortex regime during which the primary wake vortices were sinking 270 m below the A380 flight level while the secondary wake remained above. Contrail properties were sampled separately in the primary wake at 90 and 115 s con-trail age and nearly continously in the secondary wake at contrail ages from 70 s to 220 s. The scattering phase functions of the contrail particles were measured with a polar nephelometer. The asymmetry parameter derived from these data is used to distinguish between quasi-spherical and as-pherical ice particles. In the primary wake, quasi-spherical ice particles were found with concentrations up to 160 cm −3 , mean effective diameter D eff of 3.7 µm, maximum extinction of 7.0 km −1 , and ice water content (IWC) of 3 mg m −3 at slightly ice-subsaturated conditions. The secondary and primary wakes were separated by an almost particle-free wake vortex gap. The secondary wake contained clearly aspherical contrail ice particles with mean D eff of 4.8 µm, mean (maxi-mum) concentration, extinction, and IWC of 80 (350) cm −3 , 1.6 (5.0) km −1 , and 2.5 (10) mg m −3 , respectively, at conditions apparently above ice-saturation. The asymmetry parameter in the secondary wake decreased with contrail age from 0.87 to 0.80 on average indicating a preferential aspher-ical ice crystal growth. A retrieval of ice particle habit and size with an inversion code shows that the number fraction of aspherical ice crystals increased from 2 % initially to 56 % at 4 min contrail age. The observed crystal size and habit differences in the primary and secondary wakes of an up to 4 min old contrail are of interest for understanding ice crystal growth in contrails and their climate impact. Aspherical con-trail ice particles cause less radiative forcing than spherical ones.
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Dates et versions

hal-01895872 , version 1 (15-10-2018)

Identifiants

Citer

J.-F. Gayet, V. Shcherbakov, C. Voigt, U. Schumann, D. Schäuble, et al.. The evolution of microphysical and optical properties of an A380 contrail in the vortex phase. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2012, 12 (14), pp.6629 - 6643. ⟨10.5194/acp-12-6629-2012⟩. ⟨hal-01895872⟩
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