Shallow cumuli cover and its uncertainties from ground-based lidar–radar data and sky images

Riley, Erin A.; Kleiss, Jessica M.; Riihimaki, Laura D.; Long, Charles N.; Berg, Larry K.; Kassianov, Evgueni

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2099-2020

Articles | Volume 13, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2099-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2099-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 4

Research article

|

23 Apr 2020

Research article |

| 23 Apr 2020

Shallow cumuli cover and its uncertainties from ground-based lidar–radar data and sky images

Erin A. Riley, Jessica M. Kleiss, Laura D. Riihimaki, Charles N. Long, Larry K. Berg, and Evgueni Kassianov

Data sets

TSI composite images merged cloud fraction product for shallow cumulus cases (tsiQLtable) J. Kleiss https://doi.org/10.5439/1523254

Active Remotely-Sensed Cloud Locations (ARSCLCBH1CLOTH) S. Giangrande and K. Johnson https://doi.org/10.5439/1027284

Ceilometer (CEIL), Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility V. Morris, C. Flynn, and B. Ermold https://doi.org/10.5439/1181954

Active Remote Sensing of CLouds (ARSCL) product using Ka-band ARM Zenith Radars (ARSCLKAZR1KOLLIAS) T. Fairless, S. Giangrande, and K. Johnson https://doi.org/10.5439/1350629

ARM Best Estimate Data Products (ARMBEATM) X. Chen and S. Xie https://doi.org/10.5439/1095313

Radar Wind Profiler (915RWPWINDCON) R. Coulter, P. Muradyan, and T. Martin https://doi.org/10.5439/1025135

Total Sky Imager (TSICLDMASK) V. Morris https://doi.org/10.5439/1025306

Short summary

Discrepancies in hourly shallow cumuli cover estimates can be substantial. Instrument detection differences contribute to long-term bias in shallow cumuli cover estimates, whereas narrow field-of-view configurations impact measurement uncertainty as averaging time decreases. A new tool is introduced to visually assess both impacts on sub-hourly cloud cover estimates. Accurate shallow cumuli cover estimation is needed for model–observation comparisons and studying cloud-surface interactions.