Title: Clouds, Precipitation, and Marine Boundary Layer Structure during the MAGIC Field Campaign

Abstract

The recent ship-based MAGIC (Marine ARM GCSS Pacific Cross-Section Intercomparison (GPCI) Investigation of Clouds) field campaign with the marine-capable Second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) deployed on the Horizon Lines cargo container M/V Spirit provided nearly 200 days of intraseasonal high-resolution observations of clouds, precipitation, and marine boundary layer (MBL) structure on multiple legs between Los Angeles, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. During the deployment, MBL clouds exhibited a much higher frequency of occurrence than other cloud types and occurred more often in the warm season than in the cold season. MBL clouds demonstrated a propensity to produce precipitation, which often evaporated before reaching the ocean surface. The formation of stratocumulus is strongly correlated to a shallow MBL with a strong inversion and a weak transition, while cumulus formation is associated with a much weaker inversion and stronger transition. The estimated inversion strength is shown to depend seasonally on the potential temperature at 700 hPa. The location of the commencement of systematic MBL decoupling always occurred eastward of the locations of cloud breakup, and the systematic decoupling showed a strong moisture stratification. The entrainment of the dry warm air above the inversion appears to be the dominant factor triggering the systematic decoupling,more » while surface latent heat flux, precipitation, and diurnal circulation did not play major roles. MBL clouds broke up over a short spatial region due to the changes in the synoptic conditions, implying that in real atmospheric conditions the MBL clouds do not have enough time to evolve as in the idealized models. (auth)« less

Authors:

Zhou, Xiaoli ^[1]; Kollias, Pavlos ^[1]; Lewis, Ernie R. ^[2]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. McGill Univ., Montreal, Quebec (Canada); Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
2. Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States). Biological, Environmental, and Climate Sciences Dept.

Publication Date:

Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2015

Research Org.:

Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC)

OSTI Identifier:

1169563

Report Number(s):

BNL-107366-2015-JA
Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755; R&D Project: 2016-BNL-EE630EECA-Budg; KP1701000

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC00112704

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Journal of Climate

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 28; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755

Publisher:

American Meteorological Society

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES