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Title: DOE ASR Final Report on “Use of ARM Observations to Investigate the Role of Tropical Radiative Processes and Cloud Radiative Effects in Climate Simulations”

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1418734· OSTI ID:1418734
 [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences

The overall objective of this ASR funded project is to investigate the role of cloud radiative effects, especially those associated with tropical thin cirrus clouds in the tropical tropopause layer, by analyzing the ARM observations combined with numerical models. In particular, we have processed and analyzed the observations from the Raman lidar at the ARM SGP and TWP sites. In the tenure of the project (8/15/2013 – 8/14/2016 and with a no-cost extension to 8/14/2017), we have been concentrating on (i) developing an automated feature detection scheme of clouds and aerosols for the ARM Raman lidar; (ii) developing an automated retrieval of cloud and aerosol extinctions for the ARM Raman lidar; (iii) investigating cloud radiative effects based on the observations on the simulated temperatures in the tropical tropopause layer using a radiative-convective model; and (iv) examining the effect of changes of atmospheric composition on the tropical lower-stratospheric temperatures. In addition, we have examined the biases in the CALIPSO-inferred aerosol direct radiative effects using ground-based Raman lidars at the ARM SGP and TWP sites, and estimated the impact of lidar detection sensitivity on assessing global aerosol direct radiative effects. We have also investigated the diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM site using the cloud radar observations along with simulations from the multiscale modeling framework. The main results of our research efforts are reported in the six referred journal publications that acknowledge the DOE Grant DE-SC0010557.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER) (SC-23). Atmospheric System Research (ASR)
DOE Contract Number:
SC0010557
OSTI ID:
1418734
Report Number(s):
DE-UW-SC0010557
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English