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Cited by 43Atmospheric aerosols and cloudsMeteorological Phenomena and SimulationsRadio Wave Propagation Studies

Aircraft millimeter-wave passive sensing of cloud liquid water and water vapor during VOCALS-REx.

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Zuidema, P., Leon, D., Pazmany, A., Cadeddu, M.·2012·Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
DOI 10.5194/acp-12-355-2012

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Abstract

Abstract. Routine liquid water path measurements and water vapor path are valuable for process studies of the cloudy marine boundary layer and for the assessment of large-scale models. The VOCALS Regional Experiment respected this goal by including a small, inexpensive, upward-pointing millimeter-wavelength passive radiometer on the fourteen research flights of the NCAR C-130 plane, the G-band (183 GHz) Vapor Radiometer (GVR). The radiometer permitted above-cloud retrievals of the free-tropospheric water vapor path (WVP). Retrieved free-tropospheric (above-cloud) water vapor paths possessed a strong longitudinal gradient, with off-shore values of one to two mm and near-coastal values reaching ten mm. The VOCALS-REx free troposphere was drier than that of previous years. Cloud liquid water paths (LWPs) were retrieved from the sub-cloud and cloudbase aircraft legs through a combination of the GVR, remotely-sensed cloud boundary information, and in-situ thermodynamic data. The absolute (between-leg) and relative (within-leg) accuracy of the LWP retrievals at 1 Hz (~100 m) resolution was estimated at 20 g m−2 and 3 g m−2 respectively for well-mixed conditions, and 25 g m−2 absolute uncertainty for decoupled conditions where the input WVP specification was more uncertain. Retrieved liquid water paths matched adiabatic values derived from coincident cloud thickness measurements exceedingly well. A significant contribution of the GVR dataset was the extended information on the thin clouds, with 62 % (28 %) of the retrieved LWPs <100 (40) g m−2. Coastal LWPs values were lower than those offshore. For the four dedicated 20° S flights, the mean (median) coastal LWP was 67 (61) g m−2, increasing to 166 (120) g m−2 1500 km offshore. The overall LWP cloud fraction from thirteen research flights was 63 %, higher than that of adiabatic LWPs at 40 %, but lower than the lidar-determined cloud cover of 85 %, further testifying to the frequent occurrence of thin clouds.

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  • Even when the CMIP surface radiative forcing is correct, the cloud cover is still typically too low, likely due to an underestimation of optically thin stratiform clouds.

    “Even when the CMIP surface radiative forcing is correct, the cloud cover is still typically too low (de Szoeke et al., 2012), likely due to an underestimation of optically thin stratiform clouds (Nam et al., 2012;Zuidema et al., 2012;Delgadillo et al., 2018;Wood et al., 2018).”

    From The tropical atlantic observing system (2019) · cites this paper as Zuidema et al., 2012

    The Conclusions report that thin clouds were frequent in the observed southeast Pacific dataset. Section 5.4 discusses thin clouds missed by an instrument retrieval, not clouds underestimated by CMIP models. A search for model underestimation of optically thin stratiform clouds found no passage addressing the explanation attributed to this paper. (LLM, conf=0.72)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cites

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

  • The tropical atlantic observing system

    Foltz, G. R., Brandt, P., Richter, I., Rodríguez-Fonseca, B., Hernandez, F., Dengler, M., Rodrigues, R. R., Schmidt, J. O., Yu, L., Lefevre, N., et al. (2019) · Frontiers in Marine Science · doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00206 · Cited by 150 · see citing works

    “Even when the CMIP surface radiative forcing is correct, the cloud cover is still typically too low (de Szoeke et al., 2012), likely due to an underestimation of optically thin stratiform clouds (Nam et al., 2012; Zuidema et al., 2012; Delgadillo et al., 2018; Wood et al., 2018).”
    BackgroundSelf-citation

Authors
Zuidema, P., Leon, D., Pazmany, A., & Cadeddu, M.
Affiliations
  • University of Miami (US)
  • University of Wyoming (US)
  • ProSensing (United States) (US)
  • Argonne National Laboratory (US)
ORCID
Venue
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Published
2012-01-05
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
355-369
ISSN
  • 1680-7316 (ISSN-L)
  • 1680-7324
DOI
10.5194/acp-12-355-2012
OpenAlex
W2129568958
Cited by
43
References
1
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 8
FWCI
5.05
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Atmospheric chemistry and physics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Science Foundation (0745470)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Radio Wave Propagation Studies
Keywords
cloud liquid water path, VOCALS-REx, marine boundary layer, thin clouds, cloud fraction, cloud thickness, airborne remote sensing

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