Structural characteristics and radiative properties of tropical cloud clusters
- Instituto de Aeronautica e Espaco, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
- NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, New York, NY (United States)
By identifying individual tropical cloud clusters in eight months of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data, the size distribution, average cloud properties, and their variation with system size in tropical convective systems (CS) is examined. The geographic distribution of CS shows a concentration over land areas in the summer hemisphere with little seasonal variation except for the major shift of location into the summer hemisphere. When the tropics are considered as a whole or a region is considered over a whole season, CS of all sizes form a continuous size distribution where the area covered by the clouds in each size range is approximately the same. Land CS show a small excess of the smallest CS and a small deficit of the largest CS in comparison to ocean CS. Average CS cloud properties suggest two major cloud types: One with lower cloud-top pressures and much higher optical thicknesses, associated with deep convection, and one with higher cloud-top pressures and some evidence of a further division into optically thicker and thinner parts. The average properties of these clouds vary in a correlated fashion such that a larger horizontal extent of the convective system cloud is accompanied by a lower convective cloud-top pressure, larger anvil cloud size, and larger anvil cloud optical thickness. These structural properties and their diurnal variation also suggest that the smallest CS may represent a mixture of the formative and dissipative stages of CS, while the medium and large sizes are, principally, the mature stage. A radiative transfer model is used to evaluate the local radiative effects of CS with average cloud properties. The results imply that the mesoscale anvil cloud reinforces the diabatic heating of the atmosphere by the convection and may help sustain these systems at night. The radiative effects of the convective clouds may reinforce the diurnal variation of convection. 80 refs., 17 figs., 3 tabs.
- OSTI ID:
- 441386
- Journal Information:
- Monthly Weather Review, Journal Name: Monthly Weather Review Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 121; ISSN MWREAB; ISSN 0027-0644
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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