PNNL

Abstract

Immersion freezing is the most relevant heterogeneous ice nucleation mechanism 3 through which ice crystals are formed in mixed-phase clouds. In recent years, an increasing 4 number of laboratory experiments utilizing a variety of instruments have examined immersion 5 freezing activity of atmospherically relevant ice nucleating particles (INPs). However, an 6 inter-comparison of these laboratory results is a difficult task because investigators have used 7 different ice nucleation (IN) measurement methods to produce these results. A remaining 8 challenge is to explore the sensitivity and accuracy of these techniques and to understand how 9 the IN results are potentially influenced or biased by experimental parameters associated with 10 these techniques. 11 Within the framework of INUIT (Ice Nucleation research UnIT), we distributed an 12 illite rich sample (illite NX) as a representative surrogate for atmospheric mineral dust 13 particles to investigators to perform immersion freezing experiments using different IN 14 measurement methods and to obtain IN data as a function of particle concentration, 15 temperature (T), cooling rate and nucleation time. Seventeen measurement methods were 16 involved in the data inter-comparison. Experiments with seven instruments started with the 17 test sample pre-suspended in water before cooling, while ten other instruments employed 18 water vapor condensation onto dry-dispersed particles followed by immersion freezing. The 19 resulting comprehensive immersion freezing dataset was evaluated using the ice nucleation 20 active surface-site density (ns) to develop a representative ns(T) spectrum that spans a wide 21 temperature range (-37 °C