TY - JOUR
T1 - Climatology of Cloud-Top Radiative Cooling in Marine Shallow Clouds
AU - Zheng, Youtong
AU - Zhu, Yannian
AU - Rosenfeld, Daniel
AU - Li, Zhanqing
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2021/10/16
Y1 - 2021/10/16
N2 - A one-year’s worth of near-global marine shallow single-layer cloud top radiative cooling (CTRC) is derived from a radiative transfer model with inputs from the satellite cloud retrievals and reanalysis sounding. The mean cloud top radiative flux divergence is 61 Wm−2, decomposed into the longwave and shortwave components of 73 and −11 W m−2, respectively. Equatorward of 30°N/S, the CTRC is largely a reflection of free-atmospheric specific humidity distribution: a dry atmosphere enhances CTRC by reducing downward thermal radiation. Consequently, the cooling minimizes in the “wet” tropics and maximizes in the “dry” eastern subtropics. Poleward of 30°N/S, the CTRC decreases slightly due to the colder clouds that emit less effectively. The CTRC exhibits distinctive seasonal cycles with stronger cooling in the winter and has amplitudes of order 10–20 Wm−2 in stratocumulus-rich regions. The datasets were used to train a machine-learning model that substantially speeds up the retrieval.
AB - A one-year’s worth of near-global marine shallow single-layer cloud top radiative cooling (CTRC) is derived from a radiative transfer model with inputs from the satellite cloud retrievals and reanalysis sounding. The mean cloud top radiative flux divergence is 61 Wm−2, decomposed into the longwave and shortwave components of 73 and −11 W m−2, respectively. Equatorward of 30°N/S, the CTRC is largely a reflection of free-atmospheric specific humidity distribution: a dry atmosphere enhances CTRC by reducing downward thermal radiation. Consequently, the cooling minimizes in the “wet” tropics and maximizes in the “dry” eastern subtropics. Poleward of 30°N/S, the CTRC decreases slightly due to the colder clouds that emit less effectively. The CTRC exhibits distinctive seasonal cycles with stronger cooling in the winter and has amplitudes of order 10–20 Wm−2 in stratocumulus-rich regions. The datasets were used to train a machine-learning model that substantially speeds up the retrieval.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116809871&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1029/2021GL094676
DO - 10.1029/2021GL094676
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AN - SCOPUS:85116809871
SN - 0094-8276
VL - 48
JO - Geophysical Research Letters
JF - Geophysical Research Letters
IS - 19
M1 - e2021GL094676
ER -