Characterization of vertical cloud variability over Europe using spatial lidar observations and regional simulation

Chakroun, Meriem; Chiriaco, Marjolaine; Chepfer, Hélène

doi:10.1007/s00382-016-3037-3

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…As an illustration, Chakroun et al (2016) and Rysman et al (2016) test new satellite products for regional model evaluation using respectively lidar-based and microwavebased spatial products to evaluate the vertical structure of cloud and rainfall over the sea. Adloff et al (2017) use for the first time the new ESA-CCI product for the Mediterranean Sea level.…”

Section: New Reference Datasets For Med-cordex Model Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies of the special issue focus on the evaluation of specific climate phenomena of the region such as the cyclones (Flaounas et al 2016; Sanchez-Gomez and Somot 2016), the medicanes (Gaertner et al 2016), the cloud cover (Chakroun et al 2016), the ocean deep water formation (Somot et al 2016;Dunić et al 2016), the regional winds (Obermann et al 2016) and the sea breeze (Drobinski et al 2017).…”

Section: Model Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Editorial for the Med-CORDEX special issue

et al. 2018

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Section: New Reference Datasets For Med-cordex Model Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Editorial for the Med-CORDEX special issue

et al. 2018

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“…The height intensity histograms are fully described in Chepfer et al (2010). They inherit from the CloudSat radar Cloud Frequency Altitude Diagnostic (Marchand et al, 2010) and have been widely used for evaluating the cloud description in climate models (e.g., Bodas-Salcedo et al, 2011;Chakroun et al, 2016;Nam & Quaas, 2012).…”

Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Potential of a Multidecade Spaceborne Lidar Record to Constrain Cloud Feedback

et al. 2018

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Synthetic multidecadal spaceborne lidar records are used to examine when a cloud response to anthropogenic forcing would be detectable from spaceborne lidar observations. The synthetic records are generated using long‐term cloud changes predicted by two Coupled Model Intercomparison Program 5 models seen through the COSP/lidar (CFMIP, Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project, Observation Simulators Package) and cloud interannual variability observed by the CALIPSO (Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) spaceborne lidar during the past decade. CALIPSO observations do not show any significant trend yet. Our analysis of the synthetic time series suggests that the tropical cloud longwave feedback and the Southern Ocean cloud shortwave feedback might be constrained with 70% confidence with, respectively, a 20‐year and 29‐year uninterrupted lidar‐in‐space record. A 27‐year record might be needed to separate the two different model predictions in the tropical subsidence clouds. Assuming that combining the CALIPSO and Earth‐CARE (Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer) missions will lead to a spaceborne lidar record of at least 16 years, we examine the impact of gaps and calibration offsets between successive missions. A 2‐year gap between Earth‐CARE and the following spaceborne lidar would have no significant impact on the capability to constrain the cloud feedback if all the space lidars were perfectly intercalibrated. Any intercalibration shift between successive lidar missions would delay the capability to constrain the cloud feedback mechanisms, larger shifts leading to longer delays.

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“…AMSU-B/MHS sounders appear as a complementary approach to evaluate the simulation at finer temporal (3-4 h) and spatial (16 km at nadir) resolutions with an homogeneous precipitation information over land and sea. The cloud coverage has also been evaluated in (Chakroun et al, 2016).…”

Section: The Weather Research and Forecasting Regional Climate Model mentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential of microwave observations for the evaluation of rainfall and convection in a regional climate model in the frame of HyMeX and MED-CORDEX

et al. 2016

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This study evaluates the potential of spaceborne passive microwave observations for assessing decadal simulations of precipitation from a regional climate model through a model-to-satellite approach. A simulation from the Weather and Research Forecasting (WRF) model is evaluated against 2002-2012 observations from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-B) and the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) over the Mediterranean region using the radiative transfer code RTTOV (Radiative Transfer for Tiros Operational Vertical Sounder). It is first shown that simulated and observed brightness temperatures are consistently correlated for both water vapour and window channels. Yet, although the average simulated and observed brightness temperatures are similar, the range of bright- ness temperatures is larger in the observations. The difference is presumably due to the too low content of frozen particles in the simulation. To assess this hypothesis, density and altitude of simulated frozen hydrometeors are compared with observations from an airborne cloud radar. Results show that simulated frozen hydrometeors are found at lower median altitude than observed frozen hydrometeors, with an average content at least 5 times inferior. Spatial distributions of observed and simulated precipitation match reasonably well. However, when using simulated brightness temperatures to diagnose rainfall, the simulation performs very poorly. These results highlight the need of providing more realistic frozen hydrometeors content, which will increase the interest of using passive microwave observations for the long-term evaluation of regional models. In particular, significant improvements are expected from the archiving of convective fluxes of precipitating hydrometeors in future regional model simulation programs.

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Characterization of vertical cloud variability over Europe using spatial lidar observations and regional simulation

Cited by 8 publications

References 62 publications

Editorial for the Med-CORDEX special issue

Editorial for the Med-CORDEX special issue

The Potential of a Multidecade Spaceborne Lidar Record to Constrain Cloud Feedback

Potential of microwave observations for the evaluation of rainfall and convection in a regional climate model in the frame of HyMeX and MED-CORDEX

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