Lidar observations of Arctic polar stratospheric clouds, 1988 - Signature of small, solid particles above the frost point

The paper presents recent (January 1988) Arctic airborne lidar data which suggest that Type I polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are composed of small solid particles with radii on the order of 0.5 micron. PSCs were observed remotely in the 21-24 km altitude range north of Greenland during a round-trip flight from Andenes, Norway on January 29, 1988, aboard the NASA Wallops Flight Facility P-3 Orion aircraft. Synoptic analyses at the 30-mb level show local temperatures of 191-193 K, which are well above the estimated frost point temperature of 185 K; this suggests that the PSCs were probably of the binary HNO3-H2O (Type I) class.