Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data
Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) are important cyclone-related airstreams that are responsible for most of the cloud and precipitation formation in the extratropics. They can also substantially influence the dynamics of cyclones and the upper-level flow. So far, most of the knowledge about WCBs is based o...
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ftdatacite:10.3929/ethz-b-000456089 2023-05-15T17:37:16+02:00 Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data Binder, Hanin Boettcher, Maxi Joos, Hanna Sprenger, Michael Wernli, Heini 2020 application/pdf https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000456089 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/456089 en eng ETH Zurich info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY Text article-journal Journal Article ScholarlyArticle 2020 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000456089 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) are important cyclone-related airstreams that are responsible for most of the cloud and precipitation formation in the extratropics. They can also substantially influence the dynamics of cyclones and the upper-level flow. So far, most of the knowledge about WCBs is based on model data from analyses, reanalyses and forecast data with only a few observational studies available. The aim of this work is to gain a detailed observational perspective on the vertical cloud and precipitation structure of WCBs during their inflow, ascent and outflow and to evaluate their representation in the new ERA5 reanalysis dataset. To this end, satellite observations from the CloudSat radar and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) lidar are combined with an ERA5-based WCB climatology for nine Northern Hemisphere winters. Based on a case study and a composite analysis, the main findings can be summarized as follows. (i) WCB air masses are part of deep, strongly precipitating clouds, with cloud-top heights at 9–10 km during their ascent and an about 2–3 km deep layer with supercooled liquid water co-existing with ice above the melting layer. The maximum surface precipitation occurs when the WCB is at about 2–4 km height. (ii) Convective clouds can be observed above the inflow and during the ascent. (iii) At upper levels, the WCB outflow is typically located near the top of a 3 km deep cirrus layer. (iv) There is a large variability between WCBs in terms of cloud structure, peak reflectivity and associated surface precipitation. (v) The WCB trajectories with the highest radar reflectivities are mainly located over the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and – apart from the inflow – they occur at relatively low latitudes. They are associated with particularly deep and strongly precipitating clouds that occur not only during the ascent but also in the inflow and outflow regions. (vi) ERA5 represents the WCB clouds remarkably well in terms of position, thermodynamic phase and frozen hydrometeor distribution, although it underestimates the high ice and snow values in the mixed-phase clouds near the melting layer. (vii) In the lower troposphere, high potential vorticity is diabatically produced along the WCB in areas with high reflectivities and hydrometeor contents, and at upper levels, low potential vorticity prevails in the cirrus layer in the WCB outflow. The study provides important observational insight into the internal cloud structure of WCBs and emphasizes the ability of ERA5 to essentially capture the observed pattern but also reveals many small- and mesoscale structures observed by the remote sensing instruments but not captured by ERA5. : Weather and Climate Dynamics, 1 (2) Text North Atlantic DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Pacific |
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Open Polar |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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ftdatacite |
language |
English |
description |
Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) are important cyclone-related airstreams that are responsible for most of the cloud and precipitation formation in the extratropics. They can also substantially influence the dynamics of cyclones and the upper-level flow. So far, most of the knowledge about WCBs is based on model data from analyses, reanalyses and forecast data with only a few observational studies available. The aim of this work is to gain a detailed observational perspective on the vertical cloud and precipitation structure of WCBs during their inflow, ascent and outflow and to evaluate their representation in the new ERA5 reanalysis dataset. To this end, satellite observations from the CloudSat radar and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) lidar are combined with an ERA5-based WCB climatology for nine Northern Hemisphere winters. Based on a case study and a composite analysis, the main findings can be summarized as follows. (i) WCB air masses are part of deep, strongly precipitating clouds, with cloud-top heights at 9–10 km during their ascent and an about 2–3 km deep layer with supercooled liquid water co-existing with ice above the melting layer. The maximum surface precipitation occurs when the WCB is at about 2–4 km height. (ii) Convective clouds can be observed above the inflow and during the ascent. (iii) At upper levels, the WCB outflow is typically located near the top of a 3 km deep cirrus layer. (iv) There is a large variability between WCBs in terms of cloud structure, peak reflectivity and associated surface precipitation. (v) The WCB trajectories with the highest radar reflectivities are mainly located over the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and – apart from the inflow – they occur at relatively low latitudes. They are associated with particularly deep and strongly precipitating clouds that occur not only during the ascent but also in the inflow and outflow regions. (vi) ERA5 represents the WCB clouds remarkably well in terms of position, thermodynamic phase and frozen hydrometeor distribution, although it underestimates the high ice and snow values in the mixed-phase clouds near the melting layer. (vii) In the lower troposphere, high potential vorticity is diabatically produced along the WCB in areas with high reflectivities and hydrometeor contents, and at upper levels, low potential vorticity prevails in the cirrus layer in the WCB outflow. The study provides important observational insight into the internal cloud structure of WCBs and emphasizes the ability of ERA5 to essentially capture the observed pattern but also reveals many small- and mesoscale structures observed by the remote sensing instruments but not captured by ERA5. : Weather and Climate Dynamics, 1 (2) |
format |
Text |
author |
Binder, Hanin Boettcher, Maxi Joos, Hanna Sprenger, Michael Wernli, Heini |
spellingShingle |
Binder, Hanin Boettcher, Maxi Joos, Hanna Sprenger, Michael Wernli, Heini Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data |
author_facet |
Binder, Hanin Boettcher, Maxi Joos, Hanna Sprenger, Michael Wernli, Heini |
author_sort |
Binder, Hanin |
title |
Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data |
title_short |
Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data |
title_full |
Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data |
title_fullStr |
Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data |
title_full_unstemmed |
Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data |
title_sort |
vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of era5 reanalysis, cloudsat and calipso data |
publisher |
ETH Zurich |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000456089 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/456089 |
geographic |
Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Pacific |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000456089 |
_version_ |
1766137075652886528 |