Thin Liquid Water Clouds: Their Importance and Our Challenge
Many of the clouds important to the Earth’s energy balance, from the tropics to the Arctic, are optically thin and contain liquid water. Longwave and shortwave radiative fluxes are very sensitive to small perturbations of the cloud liquid water path (LWP) when the LWP is small (i.e., <100 gm-2) and, thus, the radiative properties of these clouds must be well understood to capture them correctly in climate models. Here we review the importance of these thin clouds to the Earth’s energy balance, and explain the difficulties in observing them. In particular, because these clouds are optically thin, potentially mixed-phase, and often broken (i.e., have large 3-D variability), it is challenging to retrieve their microphysical properties accurately. We describe a retrieval algorithm intercomparison that was conducted to evaluate the issues involved. Seventeen different algorithms participated and their retrieved LWP, optical depth, and effective radii are evaluated using data from several case studies. Surprisingly, evaluation of the simplest case, a single-layer overcast cloud, revealed that huge discrepancies exist among the various techniques, even among different algorithms that are in the same general classification. This suggests that, despite considerable advances that have occurred in the field, much more work must be done, and we discuss fruitful avenues for future research.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 985072
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-47822; ISSN 1520-0477; KP1205010; TRN: US201016%%1757
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 88(2):177-190, Vol. 88, Issue 2; ISSN 0003-0007
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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