Identification

Title

Combining in situ and satellite observations to understand the vertical structure of tropical anvil cloud microphysical properties during the TC4 experiment

Abstract

Tropical anvil clouds have a profound impact on Earth's weather and climate. Their role in Earth's energy balance and hydrologic cycle is heavily modulated by the vertical structure of the microphysical properties for various hydrometeors in these clouds and their dependence on the ambient environmental conditions. Accurate representations of the variability and covariability of such vertical structures are key to both the satellite remote sensing of cloud and precipitation and numerical modeling of weather and climate, which remain a challenge. This study presents a new method to combine vertically resolved observations from CloudSat radar reflectivity and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation cloud masks with probability distributions of cloud microphysical properties and the ambient atmospheric conditions from detailed in situ measurements on tropical anvils sampled during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration TC4 (Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling) mission. We focus on the microphysical properties of the vertical distribution of ice water content, particle size distributions, and effective sizes for different hydrometeors, including ice particles and supercooled liquid droplets. Results from this method are compared with those from in situ data alone and various CloudSat/Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation cloud retrievals. The sampling limitation of the field experiment and algorithm limitations in the current retrievals is highlighted, especially for the liquid cloud particles, while a generally good agreement with ice cloud microphysical properties is seen from different methods. While the method presented in this study is applied to tropical anvil clouds observed during TC4, it can be readily employed to study a broad range of ice clouds sampled by various field campaigns.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cj8hqq

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

2020-04-01T00:00:00Z

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