Vertical cloud structure of warm conveyor belts – a comparison and evaluation of ERA5 reanalysis, CloudSat and CALIPSO data

• Main Authors: Binder, Hanin, Boettcher, Maxi, Joos, Hanna, Sprenger, Michael, Wernli, Heini, id_orcid:0 000-0001-9674-4837
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus 2020
• Subjects: Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/456089; https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000456089

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 ...