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Cover image

Clouds in the Darwin area and their relation to large-scale conditions

Jakob, Christian BMRC
Hoeglund, Sofia Lulea University of Technology

This poster shows a climatological overview of the cloud cover in the Darwin region (location of a TWP ARM site) in the very north of Australia. Information on optical thickness and cloud top pressure from the ISCCP Stage D1 product over the time period 1985 to 2000 has been used to examine how the cloud cover changes over the course of a year, and also how it is affected by the seasonal changes in the region. The most remarkable changes can be seen during the wet (summer) season, when wet westerly winds sweep in over Darwin and dramatically change the weather conditions.

By dividing the cloud cover into cloud regimes, one can also see an interesting link between rainfall trends and cloud cover trends, a link that cannot as easily be detected when looking at the average cloud cover. Furthermore, these regimes are also used to take a closer look at how the Darwin area is affected by large-scale atmospheric phenomena such as the intra-seasonal Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

This poster will be displayed at the ARM Science Team Meeting.