A Statistical Analysis of the Coupling Between Subgrid Cloud Structure and Grid-Scale Dynamic-Hydrological Processes

O'Hirok, W. and Gautier, C., University of California, Santa Barbara
Twelfth Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Science Team Meeting

Sufficient knowledge of the spatial distribution of cloud properties within a GCM grid is central to parameterizing subgrid radiative processes. While methods are being developed to account for these processes they all must to a degree rely on some statistical measure of subgrid cloud variability. In regards to cloud properties, however, present day climate models provide little more than a vertical distribution of liquid water, ice and cloud fraction. Hence, it is necessary to arrive at some means for linking cloud structure to grid or supra-gridscale dynamic-hydrological processes as predicted by climate models. In this study, we perform a type of principal components analysis on a sub-temporal set of the ARM dataset to investigate these links. The variables include surface observations, satellite imagery and climate model output. We expect this preliminary analysis will provide guidance for a more exhaustive statistical analysis of the ARM dataset.

Note: This is the poster abstract presented at the meeting; an extended version was not provided by the author(s).