Spatial variability of surface irradiance measurements at the Manus ARM site

Abstract

AbstractThe location of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site on Manus island was chosen because it is very close to the coast, in a flat, near–sea level area of the island, hopefully minimizing the impact of local island effects on the meteorology of the measurements. In this study, we confirm that the Manus site is indeed less impacted by the island meteorology than slightly inland by comparing over a year of broadband surface irradiance and ceilometer measurements and derived quantities at the standard Manus site and a second location 7 km away as part of the ARM Madden Julian Oscillation Investigation Experiment (AMIE)‐Manus campaign. The two sites show statistically similar distributions of irradiance and other derived quantities for all wind directions except easterly winds, when the inland site is downwind from the standard Manus site. Under easterly wind conditions, which occur 17% of the time, there is a higher occurrence of cloudiness at the downwind site likely due to land heating and orographic effects. This increased cloudiness is caused by scattered clouds often with bases around 700 m in altitude. While the central Manus site consistently measures a frequency of occurrence of low clouds (cloud base height less than 1200 m) about 25% of the time regardless of wind direction, the AMIE site has higher frequencies of low clouds (38%) when winds are from the east. This increase in low, locally produced clouds causes an additional −20W/m2shortwave surface cloud radiative effect at the AMIE site than the Manus site.