Results are presented from a detailed case study of daytime stratocumulus over the North Sea using an instrumented aircraft. The measurements include turbulence fluctuation data, radiation fluxes and droplet spectra and were made both in and out of cloud. The mean structure is discussed and a diagnostic, onedimensional, mixed layer model is formulated to predict the variation of turbulent fluxes with height and to assess the sensitivity of these solutions to various physical processes. These predictions are compared with observations enabling the effectiveness of some widely used model assumptions to be tested.Water transport by gravitational settling is found to be important throughout the depth of the cloud. Mixing within the cloud is driven by convection generated primarily by radiative effects: strong cooling from cloud top with warming beneath although the net heating of the cloud layer is close to zero. Turbulent kinetic energy is exported downwards via negatively buoyant elements from the zone of intense cooling near cloud top into the body of the cloud. This appears to be achieved by the combined action of the turbulent transport and velocity-pressure correlation terms in the turbulent kinetic energy balance equation which are therefore important in maintaining mixing in the lower part of the cloud.The cloud and sub-cloud layers are found to be decoupled, i.e. they appear as two separated mixed layers. Reasons for this are examined and some further consequences for cloud evolution are investigated. In the particular case studied, potential instability could be generated in the lower layer leading to low-level cumulus formation. These rise into the stratocumulus layer thereby reconnecting the two previously separated regions. The implications for stratiform cloud modelling are discussed and some recommendations for future work made. 783

During June and July 1987, a major collaborative experiment (part of The First ISCCP [International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project] Regional Experiment (FIRE) took place off the coast of California to study the extensive fields of stratocumulus clouds that are a persistent feature of subtropical marine boundary layers. For the first time, measurements were made on both the regional scale and on the detailed local scale to permit the widest possible interpretation of the mean, turbulent, microphysical, radiative, and chemical characteristics of stratocumulus, together with the interactions among these quantities that are believed to be important in controlling the structure and evolution of these clouds. Multiple aircraft were used to make detailed, in situ measurements and to provide a bridge between the microscale and features seen from satellites. Ground-based remote-sensing systems on San Nicolas Island captured the time evolution of the boundary-layer structure during the three-week duration of the experiment, and probes flown from tethered balloons were used to measure turbulence at several levels simultaneously, and to collect cloud-microphysical data and cloud-radiative data. Excellent cloud conditions were present throughout the experiment, although the data show that even this relatively simple cloud system displays fairly complicated structures on a variety of scales. Overall, the operational goals of the experiment were satisfied and preliminary results look very encouraging. The data collected should provide the observational base needed to increase our understanding of how stratocumulus clouds are generated, maintained, and dissipated, and thus provide for better parameterizations in large-scale numerical models and improved methods for retrieving cloud properties by satellite.

No abstract

No abstract

SUMMARYResults are presented from a detailed case study of daytime stratocumulus over the North Sea using an instrumented aircraft. The measurements include turbulence fluctuation data, radiation fluxes and droplet spectra and were made both in and out of cloud. The mean structure is discussed and a diagnostic, onedimensional, mixed layer model is formulated to predict the variation of turbulent fluxes with height and to assess the sensitivity of these solutions to various physical processes. These predictions are compared with observations enabling the effectiveness of some widely used model assumptions to be tested.Water transport by gravitational settling is found to be important throughout the depth of the cloud. Mixing within the cloud is driven by convection generated primarily by radiative effects: strong cooling from cloud top with warming beneath although the net heating of the cloud layer is close to zero. Turbulent kinetic energy is exported downwards via negatively buoyant elements from the zone of intense cooling near cloud top into the body of the cloud. This appears to be achieved by the combined action of the turbulent transport and velocity-pressure correlation terms in the turbulent kinetic energy balance equation which are therefore important in maintaining mixing in the lower part of the cloud.The cloud and sub-cloud layers are found to be decoupled, i.e. they appear as two separated mixed layers. Reasons for this are examined and some further consequences for cloud evolution are investigated. In the particular case studied, potential instability could be generated in the lower layer leading to low-level cumulus formation. These rise into the stratocumulus layer thereby reconnecting the two previously separated regions. The implications for stratiform cloud modelling are discussed and some recommendations for future work made.