Global Weather States and Their Properties from Passive and Active Satellite Cloud Retrievals

Tselioudis, George; Rossow, William B.; Zhang, Yuanchong; Konsta, Dimitra

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-13-00024.1

Cited by 111 publications

(175 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

152

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We process data for five Southern Hemisphere summers (December-February), from December 2006 to February 2011 (except January 2011 because of missing data). We classify each profile (or cloud group) according to how the clouds are distributed in the vertical, following the cloud vertical structure (CVS) proposed by Tselioudis et al (2013). The atmospheric column is divided into three layers, with pressure boundaries at 440 and 680 hPa.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large Contribution of Supercooled Liquid Clouds to the Solar Radiation Budget of the Southern Ocean

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Southern Ocean is a critical region for global climate, yet large cloud and solar radiation biases over the Southern Ocean are a long-standing problem in climate models and are poorly understood, leading to biases in simulated sea surface temperatures. This study shows that supercooled liquid clouds are central to understanding and simulating the Southern Ocean environment. A combination of satellite observational data and detailed radiative transfer calculations is used to quantify the impact of cloud phase and cloud vertical structure on the reflected solar radiation in the Southern Hemisphere summer. It is found that clouds with supercooled liquid tops dominate the population of liquid clouds. The observations show that clouds with supercooled liquid tops contribute between 27% and 38% to the total reflected solar radiation between 40° and 70°S, and climate models are found to poorly simulate these clouds. The results quantify the importance of supercooled liquid clouds in the Southern Ocean environment and highlight the need to improve understanding of the physical processes that control these clouds in order to improve their simulation in numerical models. This is not only important for improving the simulation of present-day climate and climate variability, but also relevant for increasing confidence in climate feedback processes and future climate projections.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large Contribution of Supercooled Liquid Clouds to the Solar Radiation Budget of the Southern Ocean

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…4, based on Tselioudis et al (2013)], indicates that the Azores experience the range of different weather states with a similar frequency to that experienced globally. The Azores experience the low-cloud weather states somewhat more frequently than the planet as a whole with fewer instances of clear skies and fair weather conditions and more frequent occurrences of trade cumulus and stratocumulus, and this probably reflects the marine environment.…”

Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clouds, Aerosols, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer: An Arm Mobile Facility Deployment

Wood

Wyant

Bretherton

et al. 2015

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Self Cite

126

147

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Clouds, Aerosol, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer (CAP-MBL) deployment at Graciosa Island in the Azores generated a 21-month (April 2009–December 2010) comprehensive dataset documenting clouds, aerosols, and precipitation using the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF). The scientific aim of the deployment is to gain improved understanding of the interactions of clouds, aerosols, and precipitation in the marine boundary layer. Graciosa Island straddles the boundary between the subtropics and midlatitudes in the northeast Atlantic Ocean and consequently experiences a great diversity of meteorological and cloudiness conditions. Low clouds are the dominant cloud type, with stratocumulus and cumulus occurring regularly. Approximately half of all clouds contained precipitation detectable as radar echoes below the cloud base. Radar and satellite observations show that clouds with tops from 1 to 11 km contribute more or less equally to surface-measured precipitation at Graciosa. A wide range of aerosol conditions was sampled during the deployment consistent with the diversity of sources as indicated by back-trajectory analysis. Preliminary findings suggest important two-way interactions between aerosols and clouds at Graciosa, with aerosols affecting light precipitation and cloud radiative properties while being controlled in part by precipitation scavenging. The data from Graciosa are being compared with short-range forecasts made with a variety of models. A pilot analysis with two climate and two weather forecast models shows that they reproduce the observed time-varying vertical structure of lower-tropospheric cloud fairly well but the cloud-nucleating aerosol concentrations less well. The Graciosa site has been chosen to be a permanent fixed ARM site that became operational in October 2013.

show abstract

“…For all these reasons, evaluations of cloud vertical distributions derived from ISCCP show significant differences with CALIPSO-CloudSat (Rossow and Zhang 2010;Tselioudis et al 2013). Comparison of joint histograms of cloud top pressure and optical depth (CP-s diagrams) from ISCCP and from CALIPSO-CloudSat shows that ISCCP retrievals tend to place high clouds too low and low clouds too high (Mace and Wrenn 2013).…”

Section: Constraints On Cloud Feedbacks From Lidarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational Constraints on Cloud Feedbacks: The Role of Active Satellite Sensors

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cloud profiling from active lidar and radar in the A-train satellite constellation has significantly advanced our understanding of clouds and their role in the climate system. Nevertheless, the response of clouds to a warming climate remains one of the largest uncertainties in predicting climate change and for the development of adaptions to change. Both observation of long-term changes and observational constraints on the processes responsible for those changes are necessary. We review recent progress in our understanding of the cloud feedback problem. Capabilities and advantages of active sensors for observing clouds are discussed, along with the importance of active sensors for deriving constraints on cloud feedbacks as an essential component of a global climate observing system.

show abstract

Global Weather States and Their Properties from Passive and Active Satellite Cloud Retrievals

Cited by 111 publications

References 30 publications

Large Contribution of Supercooled Liquid Clouds to the Solar Radiation Budget of the Southern Ocean

Large Contribution of Supercooled Liquid Clouds to the Solar Radiation Budget of the Southern Ocean

Clouds, Aerosols, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer: An Arm Mobile Facility Deployment

Observational Constraints on Cloud Feedbacks: The Role of Active Satellite Sensors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About