It has been found that wintertime mixed-phase cloud properties can present significant differences based on the degree of interaction with air masses coming from locations with reduced sea ice concentration or high presence of sea ice leads. When these air masses are represented by the water vapor transport (WVT) which can interact with the clouds, the properties of the clouds show contrasting differences with respect to cases where the WVT is not interacting with the cloud, i.e. it is not coupled to the cloud. These findings have been reported first for the analysis of the MOSAiC expedition dataset from 2019 to 2020 in the central Arctic \cite{Shupe_2022,Saavedra_Garfias_2023}. In the present contribution, we expand that analysis to long-term measurements (2012-2022) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) at the North Slope Alaska (NSA) site in Utqiaǵvik, Alaska. Based on those 10 years of characterized cloud and  sea ice properties, statistically more robust analysis is performed to support or contradict the MOSAiC results. Furthermore, the statistically richer data set from NSA allows to narrow down cases where the properties or coupled clouds to WVT are substantially dissimilar to decoupled cases. Among those are the increase of liquid water path correlated to a decrease of sea ice concentration and ice water paths which are not exhibiting an influence by sea ice concentration. The thermodynamic phase of the clouds also exposes differences based on the state of coupling among the cloud--WVT--sea ice system. These results are put into consideration for the modeling community since sea ice leads are not explicitly resolved in such models, thus the sea ice leads or polynyas effects to processes responsible for mixed-phase cloud formation/dissipation and thermodynamic phase balance are of considerable interest for the parametrization of energy exchange between the surface and the atmosphere in the Arctic.

AGU 2023 Session Selection: A093. Microphysical and Macrophysical Properties and Processes of Ice and Mixed-Phase Clouds: Linking in Situ and Remote Sensing Observations and Multiscale Models.