Abstract
Abstract The influence of clouds over the North Sea on the radiation field and on climate is investigated by analysing satellite measurements. The main interest is on high clouds due to their ambivalent behaviour in the radiation field. To quantify the influence of clouds on climate, the cloud-climate efficiency is introduced. The cloud-climate efficiency allows us to estimate the gain or respectively loss of energy of the earth/atmosphere system in the presence of a cloud, which can be specified by a cloud classification. The spatial integration of the cloud-climate efficiencies results in the cloud forcing defined by the difference of the radiative fluxes within a clear sky and a cloudy satellite image pixel. The first step is an accurate detailed cloud classification based on the maximum likelihood method. The method developed for National Oceanograph and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA AVHRR)data and Meteosat data can be used to discriminate 24 clouds, especia...
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