Exploring Meteorological and Climatic Conditions Driving California Coastal Marine Layer Clouds
Abstract
Low marine stratus clouds, often referred to as marine layer clouds (MLCs), are a persistent regional feature of California coastal summer climate. Their presence modulates summertime heat, while their unanticipated absence during a heat wave can lead to health risks as occurred in July 2006. The marine layer responds to a combination of global and regional climate and weather as well as local topography. MLC dynamics should therefore reflect sensitivities to a range of physical influences on global, regional, and local scales. Utilizing a record of MLC coastal presence and extent for Southern California created by Green Power Labs Inc. from NASA/NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) observations we strive to address the questions: how is the formation and natural behavior of MLCs controlled by local, regional, and global meteorological and climatic conditions? How well can these conditions predict MLC behavior? Relationships between MLC presence and a number of variables obtained from radiosonde measurements and a regional dynamical downscaling of a global reanalysis are assessed. Multiple influences on MLCs will be discussed (e.g. subsidence inversion presence and strength, inland temperatures, etc.) and their relative importance.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.A43B0132S
- Keywords:
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- 3307 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Boundary layer processes;
- 3310 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Clouds and cloud feedbacks;
- 3339 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Ocean/atmosphere interactions