The Climate of the Cloudy Boundary Layer from Space

While the early 21^stcentury has seen dramatic changes in climate, it has also been the golden age of satellite observations of the Earth's climate. During this period, climate has been observed from space with revolutionary detail and, in particular, climate change has been monitored in unprecedented ways. Observations from space are capable of measuring from a global perspective a multitude of components of the climate system and have played a key role in weather and climate science by, among other contributions, helping to dramatically improve the accuracy of numerical weather prediction and monitoring key trends in our climate. In this presentation, we will discuss some of the most significant aspects of the global climate in the 21^stcentury in the context of the cloudy boundary layer. We will focus on the mean climate and the spatial and temporal variability of key properties such as boundary layer height, water vapor, liquid water path and the thermodynamic vertical structure.