Spatiotemporal Variability of Surface Cloud Radiative Effects Corresponding to Different Cloud Vertical Structures
Abstract
The great impact of clouds on the planet's surface energy budget cannot be overstated. In this presentation, we focus on a specific a specific cloud classification we have developed from active satellite observations (Cloud Vertical Structure, "CVS" classes derived from CloudSat and CALIPSO) which can be used as framework to decompose surface Cloud Radiative Effects (CREs). We have found that all 10 of our CVS classes (combinations of either isolated low, middle, high clouds or simultaneously occurring pairs or triplets of these cloud categories) provide global annually-averaged radiative cooling of the surface as measured by negative total (shortwave plus longwave) CRE. We would like to investigate how much spatiotemporal variability is contained within this global annual finding. Under what conditions and which locations is the sign of the total surface CRE reversed? What is the magnitude of the variability and the extreme values? Examination of seasonal zonal plots of CRE per CVS class can summarize the climatology of CVS surface CRE and provide answers to such questions. Having developed the capability to also decompose clouds in the GEOS model into the CVS classes we also examine the degree to which the AGCM version of this model achieves verisimilitude with regard to surface CRE when compared to observations.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.A13N2658O
- Keywords:
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- 3305 Climate change and variability;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3311 Clouds and aerosols;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3359 Radiative processes;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES