The role of global cloud climatologies in validating numerical models
Abstract
The net upward longwave surface radiation is exceedingly difficult to measure from space. A hybrid method using General Circulation Model (GCM) simulations and satellite data from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) was used to produce global maps of this quantity over oceanic areas. An advantage of this technique is that no independent knowledge or assumptions regarding cloud cover for a particular month are required. The only information required is a relationship between the cloud radiation forcing (CRF) at the top of the atmosphere and that at the surface, which is obtained from the GCM simulation. A flow diagram of the technique and results are given.
- Publication:
-
Prepared for presentation at the ECMWF/GEWEX Workshop on the Hydrology and Surface Radiation in Atmospheric Models
- Pub Date:
- 1991
- Bibcode:
- 1991ecmw.work.....H
- Keywords:
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- Atmospheric General Circulation Models;
- Atmospheric Radiation;
- Climatology;
- Cloud Cover;
- Earth Radiation Budget Experiment;
- Energy Budgets;
- Isccp Project;
- Clouds (Meteorology);
- Satellite Observation;
- Simulation;
- Geophysics