Identification

Title

Spatial statistics of likely convective clouds in CloudSat data

Abstract

Spatial characteristics of cloud objects derived from 14 months of CloudSat data are analyzed with the aim of understanding global statistics for atmospheric convection. This study uses meteorological fields provided by NASA's Modern Era Reanalysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) and the European Center's ERA-Interim reanalysis to determine environmental conditions for the cloud objects. Width and aspect ratio statistics for clouds of likely convective origin are presented. Cloud object heights are compared with predictions from entraining plume models. A major finding of this study is that actual cloud depths are usually more than 50% smaller than those predicted by the plume models. This holds for a range of entrainment rate specifications, including rates based on observed cloud widths. A technique for isolating "mature" convective clouds based on their shape is proposed. When this technique is used to select objects, the comparison with the entraining plume model improves dramatically. Another result from this analysis is power law behavior in the cloud width distribution derived from CloudSat objects. After accounting for the difference between one-dimensional and two-dimensional sampling, the slope of the CloudSat distribution appears consistent with that found in earlier studies' cloud imagery. However, when clouds are selected using a minimum depth criterion, the resulting population is sharply peaked at widths close to this minimum depth. Finally, a weakly trimodal distribution of convective cloud depths is found, consistent with results from Johnson et al. (1999).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d74b31t4

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-02-19T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact