Identification

Title

Low-latitude boundary layer clouds as seen by CALIPSO

Abstract

The distribution of low-level cloud in the tropical belt is investigated using 6 months of Level 2 retrievals from Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) at 333 m and 1 km horizontal resolutions. Regional patterns of tropical clouds emerge from the data, matching expectations from existing observations. The advantage of the lidar is highlighted by the distribution of cloud-top height, revealing the preponderance of low-level clouds over the tropical oceans. Over land, cloud top is more uniformly distributed under the influence of diurnal variation. The integrated cloud-top distribution suggests tropical, marine low-cloud amount around 25–30%; a merged CALIPSO-CloudSat product has a similar cloud-top distribution and includes a complementary estimate of cloud fraction based on the lidar detections. The low-cloud distribution is similar to that found in fields of shallow cumulus observed during the Rain in Cumulus Over the Ocean (RICO) field study. The similarity is enhanced by sampling near the RICO site or sampling large-scale conditions similar to those during RICO. This finding shows how satellite observations can help to generalize findings from detailed field observations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7gq6z7q

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

2010-12-04T00:00:00Z

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