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The EPIC 2001 SE Pacific Stratocumulus Cruise: Implications for Cloudsat as a stratocumulus drizzle meter Rob Wood, Chris Bretherton and Sandra Yuter (University.

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Presentation on theme: "The EPIC 2001 SE Pacific Stratocumulus Cruise: Implications for Cloudsat as a stratocumulus drizzle meter Rob Wood, Chris Bretherton and Sandra Yuter (University."— Presentation transcript:

1 The EPIC 2001 SE Pacific Stratocumulus Cruise: Implications for Cloudsat as a stratocumulus drizzle meter Rob Wood, Chris Bretherton and Sandra Yuter (University of Washington) Chris Fairall, Taneil Uttal (NOAA/ETL) Bob Weller (Woods Hole OI)

2 Clouds types, SST and wind stress in the East Pacific

3 Goals Document cloud and boundary layer structure in the SE Pacific Assess the importance of drizzle processes to cloud thickness and extent Compare results with other Sc regimes and with large-scale models Maintain WHOI IMET buoy at 20S 85W

4 EPIC Sc cruise 9-24 Oct. 2001

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6 Radiosonde observations  qvqv Cloud baseSharp PBL inversion At Buoy Figure by Kim Comstock

7 cld top cld base LCL Cloud top and dBZ (MMCR), base (ceilometer), LCL (surf. met.)

8 [m s -1 ] ECMWF VERTICAL VELOCITY [dBZ] 10 -10 0 Diurnal Cycle

9 Diurnal cycle of subsidence w s, entrainment w e, and  z i /  t NIGHT DAY NIGHT DAY wsws wewe dz i /dt  w e = 0.24 cm s -1 ;  w s = 0.26 cm s -1 ;   z i /  t = 0.44 cm s -1  z i /  t + u  z i = w e - w s  0.05 cm s -1

10 Solar absorption and drizzle evaporative stabilization zizi Ocean Solar absorption SW Drizzle evaporaton warmingcooling Evaporative cooling

11 Drizzle + solar decoupling? Strong TKE source in cloud Evaporating drizzle suppresses TKE below cloud Drizzle Solar 2 5 8 11 14 17 20 23 Local time Buoyancy flux height [m]

12 Diurnal cycle of convective velocity scale Drizzle and solar radiation reduce mean w * by comparable amounts

13 Sample of C-band scanning radar and coincident MMCR dBZ 0530 0730 20 km

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15 Drizzle structural properties: more power at small scales than LWP UK aircraft data EPIC MMCR Typical LWP scaling

16 CLOUDSAT VS SURFACE MMCR VIEW OF DRIZZLE

17 Cloud base and surface rainrates during EPIC – importance of evaporation

18 Z-R relationships for drizzle – variations below cloud are important

19 Second indirect effect? …Cloudsat should help to answer these questions…..

20 Conclusions A remarkable dataset was gathered documenting both spatial and diurnal variability of the SE Pacific Sc regime Pronounced diurnal cycle, particularly strong drizzle cycle – most drizzle at night. Mesoscale drizzle cells ubiquitous, especially at night; more variability at small scales than LWP. Rain mostly evaporates above surface, sensitive to cloud drop conc. Z-R relationships for Sc are different from those in other cloud systems – effect of evaporation important.


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