Identification

Title

Tropospheric clouds in Antarctica

Abstract

Compared to other regions, little is known about clouds in Antarctica. This arises in part from the challenging deployment of instrumentation in this remote and harsh environment and from the limitations of traditional satellite passive remote sensing over the polar regions. Yet clouds have a critical influence on the ice sheet's radiation budget and its surface mass balance. The extremely low temperatures, absolute humidity levels, and aerosol concentrations found in Antarctica create unique conditions for cloud formation that greatly differ from those encountered in other regions, including the Arctic. During the first decade of the 21st century, new results from field studies, the advent of cloud observations from spaceborne active sensors, and improvements in cloud parameterizations in numerical models have contributed to significant advances in our understanding of Antarctic clouds. This review covers four main topics: (1) observational methods and instruments, (2) the seasonal and interannual variability of cloud amounts, (3) the microphysical properties of clouds and aerosols, and (4) cloud representation in global and regional numerical models. Aside from a synthesis of the existing literature, novel insights are also presented. A new climatology of clouds over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is derived from combined measurements of the CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellites. This climatology is used to assess the forecast cloud amounts in 20th century global climate model simulations. While cloud monitoring over Antarctica from space has proved essential to the recent advances, the review concludes by emphasizing the need for additional in situ measurements.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cr5v1t

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

2012-01-12T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

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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