Time Dependent Correlations in Marine Stratocumulus Cloud Base Height Records

Abstract

The scaling ranges of time correlations in the cloud base height records of marine boundary layer stratocumulus are studied applying the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis statistical method. We have found that time dependent variations in the evolution of the α exponent reflect the diurnal dynamics of cloud base height fluctuations in the marine boundary layer. In general, a more stable structure of the boundary layer corresponds to a lower value of the α -indicator, i.e. larger anti-persistence, thus a set of fluctuations tending to induce a greater stability of the stratocumulus. In contrast, during periods of higher instability in the marine boundary, less anti-persistent (more persistent like) behavior of the system drags it out of equilibrium, corresponding to larger α values. From an analysis of the frequency spectrum, the stratocumulus base height evolution is found to be a non-stationary process with stationary increments. The occurrence of these statistics in cloud base height fluctuations suggests the usefulness of similar studies for the radiation transfer dynamics modeling.

Long-term persistence in the sea surface temperature fluctuations

“…This non-stationary behavior must be contrasted with the atmospheric land temperature fluctuations where the variance stays constant and the persistence decays with a nearly universal exponent γ ∼ 0.7. Non-stationary behavior has also been found in the analysis of marine stratocumulus cloud base height records [Kitova et al, 2002].…”

A case study of stratus cloud base height multifractal fluctuations

“…The double pyramid triangular shape with a width growing with increased time lag is similar to that found in other meteorological cases. 39,40 We first check the stationarity of the data by applying a power spectral analysis. The power spectral density of the cloud base height data set is shown in Fig.…”

“…β=1.28±0.1 and β=1.49±0.08, are obtained in Ref. [ 39,40] for cloud base height data measurements during the Atmospheric Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX). ASTEX was designed to clarify the transition from stratocumulus to trade cumulus clouds 2 in the marine boundary layer in the region of the Azores Islands.…”

Climate Prediction through Statistical Methods

“…But as the longer timescales are governed by different processes like circulation patterns and global warming, defining long-term correlations becomes more difficult. Recently, scaling arguments have been used to analyze climatic data [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43].…”

“…The changes in properties of the cloud cover influence the radiative feedback from the clouds and become one of the important players that effect the climate in general [41]. Considerable effort has been made to study the time scaling of fluctuations of the cloud cover using DFA [31,32,33,34,36,37,38,39,40].…”