Observations and simulations of cloud thermodynamic phase over the southern ocean

• Main Author: Huang, Yi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Clouds; Cloud thermodynamic phase; thesis(doctorate); ethesis-20130531-112541; A-Train; Open access; WRF simulation; 1959.1/877770; Southern ocean; monash:119942; 2013; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4225/03/58b4eb811b885; https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Observations_and_simulations_of_cloud_thermodynamic_phase_over_the_southern_ocean/4700974

A climatology of the structure of the low-altitude cloud field over the Southern Ocean (SO, 40-65S, 100-160E) is constructed with CloudSat products for ice and liquid water. The results reveal that the CloudSat climatology produces a roughly uniform cloud field between heights of ~750-2250 m across the extent of the domain with little seasonal variation. The vast majority of these clouds reside in the temperature range of 0 to -20C, where the cloud profiling radar (CPR) on CloudSat cannot determine the thermodynamic phase. CloudSat is also unable to make reliable observations in the lowest kilometer due to the ground clutter contamination, yet the few direct observations suggest that boundary layer depth is often below 1 km and cloudy. A climatology of the cloud thermodynamic phase over the SO has been constructed with the A-Train merged data product DARDAR-MASK. Results are consistent with the CloudSat climatology, showing that low-elevation clouds (< 1 km) with little seasonal cycle dominate the region. Such clouds are also problematic for the DARDAR-MASK due to the limitation of CPR and the CALIOP lidar on CALIPSO commonly suffering from heavy extinction. A comparison between the climatology derived from CALIPSO, the DARDAR-MASK and MODIS highlights the extensive existence of supercooled liquid water (SLW) over the SO, particularly during summer. The DARDAR-MASK recorded substantially more ice and mixed phase at cloud-tops, whereas MODIS observed significantly more low-level/warm clouds. Moving beyond the cloud-top, the DARDAR-MASK finds ice to be dominant above 1 km and uncertain class to be frequent below 1km. The A-Train satellite observations have also been used to evaluate the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRFV3.3.1) NWP Model in simulating the postfrontal clouds over Tasmania and the SO. Results show that the simulations are reasonably capable of capturing the macrostructure and thermodynamic phase composition of the frontal convective clouds, the post-frontal stratocumulus clouds and to a lesser ...