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Abstract

Clouds play a role in the changing Arctic climate, and are currently the cause for large uncertainties in climate projections. Therefore, we used the ICON model and a large set of observations to study the representation of clouds in the model for an Arctic location (Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard). Using several months of high-resolution ICON simulations, we evaluated the representation of the liquid water path, integrated water vapour, as well as vertical profiles of humidity and temperature. We found a good agreement in the large-scale dynamics and variables between the model and observations we used from the super-site AWIPEV which is located in Ny-Ålesund. As next step we are working on understanding the deficiencies which we found related to the phase-partitioning in the clouds. The phase-partitioning showed too much ice production in the model. To achieve a better understanding of the deficiencies we created a tool to output the process tendencies of the 2-moment microphysics scheme, implemented in ICON. With this we can evaluate the role each microphysical process plays for the development and evolution of the clouds. The previously run simulations are used to identify the influence of specific processes under certain environmental conditions on the increased ice production. We will show first results of this analysis and suggestions for processes that have to be improved to gain a more accurate phase-partitioning.