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Relative Importance of Size Distribution and Liquid Water Path to Solar Radiation in the Presence of Continental Stratus

Sengupta, M.(a), Ackerman, T.P.(a), and Clothiaux, E.E.(b), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (a), The Pennsylavania State University (b)
Twelfth Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Science Team Meeting

Calculation of downwelling broadband solar flux at the surface in the presence of a boundary layer stratiform cloud requires information about the size distribution of the cloud droplets and the amount of water in a vertical column (liquid water path) containing the cloud. Size distributions from different sources and liquid water paths from the microwave radiometer are used to calculate surface fluxes using a radiative transfer model. These different sources of droplet size distribution include a millimeter wave radar and microwave radiometer based retrieval and a retrieval using narrowband radiation from a multifilter rotating shadowband radiometer and liquid water path from a microwave radiometer. The results of the multiple flux calculations are compared with surface flux measurements from a suite of radiometers. This comparison not only shows the performance of the retrievals but also provides an insight into the relative sensitivity of each of the two variables used to describe the stratus cloud.

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