Comparisons of cloud cover estimates and cloud fraction profiles from ARM's cloud-detecting instruments and GOES-8 data
The DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program employs both upward- and downward-looking remote-sensing instruments to measure the horizontal and vertical distributions of clouds across its Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. No single instrument is capable of completely determining these distributions over the scales of interest to ARM's Single Column Modeling (SCM) and Instantaneous Radiative Flux (IRF) groups; these groups embody the primary strategies through which ARM expects to achieve its objectives of developing and testing cloud formation parameterizations (USDOE, 1996). Collectively, however, the data from ARM's cloud-detecting instruments offer the potential for such a three-dimensional characterization. Data intercomparisons, like the ones illustrated in this paper, are steps in this direction. Examples of some initial comparisons, involving satellite, millimeter cloud radar, whole sky imager and ceilometer data, are provided herein. that many of the lessons learned can later be adapted to cloud data at the Boundary and Extended Facilities. Principally, we are concerned about: (1) the accuracy of various estimates of cloud properties at a single point, or within a thin vertical column, above the CF over time, and (2) the accuracy of various estimates of cloud properties over the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site, which can then be reduced to single, representative profiles over time. In the former case, the results are usable in the IRF and SCM strategies; in the latter case, they satisfy SCM needs specifically. The Whole Sky Imager (WSI) and ceilometer data used in one study were collected at the SGP CF between October 1 and December 31, 1996 (Shields, et. al., 1990). This three-month period, corresponding to the first set of WSI data released by ARM's Experiment Center, was sufficiently long to reveal important trends (Rodriguez, 1998).
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 14653
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-134172; TRN: AH200129%%427
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: First International Symposium on Turbulence and Shear Flow Phenomena, Santa Barbara, CA (US), 09/12/1999--09/15/1999; Other Information: PBD: 7 May 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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