Potential of Retrieving Shallow-Cloud Life Cycle from Future Generation Satellite Observations through Cloud Evolution Diagrams: A Suggestion from a Large Eddy Simulation

Abstract

We investigated the temporal evolution of two types of diagram produced by a three-dimensional large-eddy simulation: the Contoured Frequency Optical Depth Diagram (CFODD) and the correlation pattern between the cloud droplet effective radius and the cloud optical thickness (RE-COT pattern). The CFODD obtained by statistically method, in the past study, suggested that the transition of cloud stages were included in the diagram, but this paper is the first paper that confirms similar structure in the CFODD obtained by time-series analysis. Our results suggest that a part of the cloud lifecycle; transition from the non-drizzle to drizzle stage can be well expressed by the CFODD of individual clouds. While, the cloud lifecycle on the RE-COT pattern was obscure. This advantage of CFODD over the RE-COT pattern arises because the CFODD uses vertical information of the inner cloud, whereas the effective radius of the RE-COT diagram presents property near the cloud top. Our results emphasize that future satellite observations should retrieve vertical information such as the effective radius at each height with high frequency to capture the lifecycle of individual clouds. This paper presents useful suggestion that will be useful to the satellite user community for retrieving the shallow-cloud lifecycle.

Feasibility study of multi-pixel retrieval of optical thickness and droplet effective radius of inhomogeneous clouds using deep learning

“…Three-dimensional cloud-field data are generated using a LES model known as SCALE-LES (Sato et al, 2014Nishizawa et al, 2015). A double-moment bulk scheme is used for the cloud microphysics.…”

“…These cloud types are simulated for polluted (closed) and clean (open) aerosol conditions (Sato et al, 2014). Clouds are optically thick in the closed case, whereas they are optically thin with large precipitation rates in the open case.…”

Horizontal Distance of Each Cumulus and Cloud Broadening Distance Determine Cloud Cover

“…, which was the threshold between high-and low cloud cover simulated by a previous study using SCALE-LES (Sato et al 2014). A forcing of large-scale subsidence (w LS = Dz) was given for all prognostic variables ( , the same as that used in Berner et al (2011), ρ is total density whose unit is kg m −3…”

Corrigendum: “Potential of Retrieving Shallow-Cloud Life Cycle from Future Generation Satellite Observations through Cloud Evolution Diagrams: A Suggestion from a Large Eddy Simulation”

“…of Sato et al (2014), respectively. Arrows in (e) show the direction of movement of the trajectory on the RE-COT pattern that is shown in arrows A, B, and C in Fig.…”

“…Arrows in (e) show the direction of movement of the trajectory on the RE-COT pattern that is shown in arrows A, B, and C in Fig. 1b of Sato et al (2014). The unit of shading in (b), (c), and (d) is % dBZ −1 .…”