Journal ArticleDOI
Validation and Sensitivities of Frontal Clouds Simulated by the ECMWF Model
Stephen A. Klein,Christian Jakob +1 more
TLDR
In this article, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model is used to derive the typical organization of clouds surrounding a midlatitude baroclinic system.Abstract:
Clouds simulated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model are composited to derive the typical organization of clouds surrounding a midlatitude baroclinic system. Comparison of this composite of about 200 cyclones with that based on satellite data reveals that the ECMWF model quite accurately simulates the general positioning of clouds relative to a low pressure center. However, the optical depths of the model’s high/low clouds are too small/large relative to the satellite observations, and the model lacks the midlevel topped clouds observed to the west of the surface cold front. Sensitivity studies with the ECMWF model reveal that the error in high-cloud optical depths is more sensitive to the assumptions applied to the ice microphysics than to the inclusion of cloud advection or a change of horizontal resolution from 0.5625° to 1.69° lat. This reflects the fact that in the ECMWF model gravitational settling is the most rapid process controlling the abundance of ic...read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Advances in understanding clouds from ISCCP
TL;DR: The progress report on the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) describes changes made to produce new cloud data products (D data), examines the evidence that these changes are improvements over the previous version (C data), summarizes some results, and discusses plans for the ISCCP through 2005.
Book ChapterDOI
Clouds and Aerosols
Olivier Boucher,David A. Randall,Paulo Artaxo,Christopher S. Bretherton,Graham Feingold,Piers M. Forster,Veli-Matti Kerminen,Yutaka Kondo,Hong Liao,Ulrike Lohmann,Philip J. Rasch,Sathianeson Satheesh,Steven C. Sherwood,Bjorn Stevens,Xiaoye Zhang +14 more
Journal ArticleDOI
How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes
Sandrine Bony,Robert Colman,Vladimir M. Kattsov,Richard P. Allan,Christopher S. Bretherton,Jean-Louis Dufresne,Alex Hall,Stephane Hallegatte,Marika M. Holland,William Ingram,David A. Randall,Brian J. Soden,George Tselioudis,Mark J. Webb +13 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of recent observational, numerical, and theoretical studies of climate feedbacks is presented, showing that there has been progress since the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in (i) the understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in these feedbacks, (ii) the interpretation of intermodel differences in global estimates of the feedbacks associated with water vapor, lapse rate, clouds, snow, and sea ice, and (iii) the development of methodologies of evaluation of these inputs using observations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Present-Day Atmospheric Simulations Using GISS ModelE: Comparison to In Situ, Satellite, and Reanalysis Data
Gavin A. Schmidt,Reto Ruedy,James Hansen,Igor Aleinov,N. Bell,Mike Bauer,Susanne E. Bauer,Brian Cairns,Vittorio Canuto,Y. Cheng,Anthony D. Del Genio,Greg Faluvegi,Andrew D. Friend,Timothy M. Hall,Yongyun Hu,Max Kelley,Nancy Y. Kiang,Dorothy Koch,Andrew A. Lacis,Jean Lerner,Ken K. Lo,Ron L. Miller,Larissa Nazarenko,Valdar Oinas,J. P. Perlwitz,Judith Perlwitz,David Rind,Anastasia Romanou,Gary L. Russell,Makiko Sato,Drew Shindell,Peter Stone,Shan Sun,N. Tausnev,Duane Thresher,Mao-Sung Yao +35 more
TL;DR: The ModelE version of the GISS atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) and results for present-day climate simulations (ca. 1979) were presented in this article, where the model top is now above the stratopause, the number of vertical layers has increased, a new cloud microphysical scheme is used, vegetation biophysics now incorporates a sensitivity to humidity, atmospheric turbulence is calculated over the whole column, and new land snow and lake schemes are introduced.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Representation of Clouds in Large-Scale Models
TL;DR: In this paper, a prognostic scheme for stratiform and convective clouds is developed for large-scale models, where the time evolution of clouds is defined through the large scale budget equations for cloud water content and cloud air.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Development and Verification of A Cloud Prediction Scheme For the Ecmwf Model
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the development of a fractional cloud cover scheme which was implemented operationally in the ECMWF medium range forecast model in May 1985, based on a diagnostic approach in which cloudiness is related empirically to the large-scale model variables, including convective activity.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Prognostic Cloud Water Parameterization for Global Climate Models
TL;DR: In this paper, an efficient new prognostic cloud water parameterization designed for use in global climate models is described, which allows for life cycle effects in stratiform clouds and permits cloud optical properties to be determined interactively.
Journal ArticleDOI
Airflow Through Midlatitude Cyclones and the Comma Cloud Pattern
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the relationship between the configuration of the major airstreams and features such as the jet streams and dry tongue, and attach special significance to airstream boundaries, which manifest themselves as sharp discontinuities in cloud and weather patterns.
Book ChapterDOI
Organization of clouds and precipitation in extratropical cyclones
TL;DR: A number of models accounting for the distribution of cloud and precipitation in extratropical cyclones were proposed during the 19th and early 20th centuries as mentioned in this paper, and these models culminated in the classical Norwegian polar-front cyclone model of the Bergen school.
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