Abstract
Abstract. Routine cloud, precipitation and thermodynamic observations collected by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF) and Aerial Facility (AAF) during the 2-year US Department of Energy (DOE) ARM Observations and Modeling of the Green Ocean Amazon (GoAmazon2014/5) campaign are summarized. These observations quantify the diurnal to large-scale thermodynamic regime controls on the clouds and precipitation over the undersampled, climatically important Amazon basin region. The extended ground deployment of cloud-profiling instrumentation enabled a unique look at multiple cloud regimes at high temporal and vertical resolution. This longer-term ground deployment, coupled with two short-term aircraft intensive observing periods, allowed new opportunities to better characterize cloud and thermodynamic observational constraints as well as cloud radiative impacts for modeling efforts within typical Amazon wet and dry seasons.
Highlights
The simulation of clouds and the representation of cloud processes and associated feedbacks in global climate models (GCMs) remains the largest source of uncertainty in predictions of climate change (Klein and Del Genio, 2006; Del Genio, 2012)
Our analysis focuses on the T3 site that captured a wide range of shallow to deep cloud conditions, sampled and categorized using multi-sensor AMF methods detailed
The Department of Energy (DOE) Aerial Facility (AAF) G1 aircraft participated in two intensive operating periods (IOPs) that coincided with the AMF deployment
Summary
The simulation of clouds and the representation of cloud processes and associated feedbacks in global climate models (GCMs) remains the largest source of uncertainty in predictions of climate change (Klein and Del Genio, 2006; Del Genio, 2012). The AMF was equipped to capture a continuous record of column cloud and precipitation characteristics from multi-sensor profiling instrumentation, while routine surface meteorology and flux measurements along with balloon-borne radiosonde measurements provided information on the local thermodynamic state (e.g., Kollias et al, 2009; Xie et al, 2015; Tang et al, 2016). Deploying such an extended, comprehensive cloud instrumentation suite of this sort is unique to Amazon basin studies and rare within global climate–cloud interaction studies overall, in the tropics.
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