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Assessing interannual and spatial variability in cloud radiative forcing at the TWP and NSA ARM sites.

Key, Erica University of Miami, RSMAS
Minnett, Peter University of Miami

The long time series of measurements from the ARM sites in the Tropical Western Pacific and Coastal Arctic provide a useful comparative data set with which to research the local effects of clouds and their impacts on the surface radiation budget. These two sites, which comprise the characterization of maritime climate within the ARM program, also represent two extremes of the climate system. Calculations of cloud radiative forcing at the surface are performed over the length of each ARM record, to describe the mean conditions and assess interannual variability. Contemporaneous shipboard measurements of cloud type and cover as well as broadband incident radiation were collected offshore of the sites during research cruises in 1999 and 2000. Time series of cloud forcing from these independent shipboard measurements permit the determination of the suitability of the land-based measurements to describe oceanic conditions.

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