Inhomogeneous Clouds Research Articles

Ocean signatures in the total flux and polarization spectra of Earth-like exoplanets

Context. Numerical simulations of starlight that is reflected by Earth-like exoplanets predict habitability signatures that can be searched for with future telescopes. Aims. We explore signatures of water oceans in the flux and polarization spectra of this reflected light. Methods. With an adding-doubling algorithm, we computed the total flux F, polarized flux Q, and degree of polarization Ps of starlight reflected by dry and ocean model planets with Earth-like atmospheres and patchy clouds. The oceans consist of Fresnel reflecting surfaces with wind-ruffled waves, foam, and wave shadows, above natural blue seawater. Our results are presented as functions of wavelength (from 300 to 2500 nm with 1 nm resolution) and as functions of the planetary phase angle from 90° to 170°. Results. The ocean glint increases F, |Q|, and Ps with increasing phase angle at nonabsorbing wavelengths, and causes the spectra of F and |Q| for the various phase angles to intersect. In the near-infrared, Q is negative, that is, the direction of polarization is perpendicular to the plane through the star, planet, and observer. In the Ps spectra, the glint leaves dips (instead of peaks) in gaseous absorption bands. All those signatures are missing in the spectra of dry planets. Conclusions. The dips in Ps and the negative Q in the near-infrared can be searched for at a phase angle of 90°, where the planet-star separation is largest. Those ocean signatures in polarized light do not suffer from false positive glint signals that could be due to clouds or reflecting dry surfaces. For heavily cloudy planets, ocean detection is possible when the glint is (partially) cloud-free. When modeling signals of planets with oceans, using horizontally inhomogeneous cloud covers is thus crucial. Observations spread over time would increase the probability of catching a cloud-free glint and detecting an ocean.

CIRCULAR TARGET OBSERVATION OF POINT CLOUD USING LASER REFLECTION INTENSITY BY AN UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE EQUIPPED WITH A LASER SCANNER

Abstract. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with laser scanners have been widely used for various purposes, such as in construction sites, forestry, and disaster management, as they can obtain high density point clouds with millimeter to centimeter scale accuracy. However, systematic errors in the height of a UAV relative to the earth's surface may occur owing to the method of direct georeferencing using the global navigation system satellite (GNSS) and inertial measurement unit (IMU). Therefore, to enable highly accurate surveying, adjustments must be made using ground control points. However, interpreting the ground control points of a discrete, inhomogeneous density point cloud requires a high degree of skill and effort. In this study, a high-end UAV laser scanner was used to obtain the point clouds of a site using a white circular target enclosed within a black frame in a measurement setup of 500 points/m2. The center coordinates of the circle, calculated using the conventional and proposed methods, were evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. As a result, the average of 10 error distances was found to be 0.028 m for the weighted center of gravity method, 0.014 m for the fitting circle equation method, and 0.008 m for the proposed method. These results corresponded to one-fifth to one-half of the 0.045-m point intervals of the measurement plan. Thus, using the reflection intensity of point clouds, the circular target observation could be performed.

Role of Cloud Subgrid‐Scale Structure in Modulating Clouds Viewed by ISCCP, MODIS, and MISR Simulators

AbstractThe role of cloud subgrid‐scale structure in modulating satellite views of clouds was investigated. This was realized by implementing a stochastic cloud generator into the CFMIP (Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project) Observation Simulator Package together with surrogate clouds produced by a cloud‐resolving model (CRM). The subgrid‐scale structural parameters are decorrelation length for overlapping cloud fraction (Lcf), decorrelation length for overlapping cloud condensate (Lcw), and the shape parameter v for measuring cloud inhomogeneity. With the use of median values of Lcf, Lcw, and v derived from CRM, the simulated satellite views bear close resemblance to those using CRM‐inherent clouds. Varying these parameters in the range of lower and upper quartiles leads to differences that are about one‐fifth of those caused by changing cloud microphysics in CRM. While Lcf influences clouds throughout the whole troposphere, Lcw and v result in changes mostly within the upper layers. Increasing (decreasing) cloud inhomogeneity or overlapping degree leads to decreased (increased) occurrence of clouds, except for high‐topped clouds viewed by Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer. Care must then be exercised when interpreting model biases in comparison with different instruments. Sensitivity tests show changing condensate distribution from gamma to lognormal makes little impact on final results. Although the differences induced by any of the parameters alone are much limited, they are getting comparable to those seen between models and observations when all parameters are synergistically altered. This brings encouraging results to the modeling community that simulator‐diagnosed clouds can be potentially improved by tuning cloud subgrid‐scale parameters.

Retrieval and Evaluation of Ice Water Content from the Airborne Wyoming Cloud Radar in Orographic Wintertime Clouds during SNOWIE

Abstract As part of the analysis following the Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Storms (SNOWIE) project, the ice water content (IWC) in ice and mixed-phase clouds is retrieved from airborne Wyoming Cloud Radar (WCR) measurements aboard the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA), which has a suite of integrated in situ IWC, optical array probes, and remote sensing measurements, and it provides a unique dataset for this algorithm development and evaluation. A sensitivity study with different idealized ice particle habits shows that the retrieved IWC with aggregate ice particle habit agrees the best with the in situ measurement, especially in ice or ice-dominated mixed-phase clouds with a correlation coefficient (rr) of 0.91 and a bias of close to 0. For mixed-phase clouds with ice fraction ratio less than 0.8, the variances of IWC estimates increase (rr = 0.76) and the retrieved mean IWC is larger than in situ IWC by a factor of 2. This is found to be related to the uncertainty of in situ measurements, the large cloud inhomogeneity, and the retrieval assumption uncertainty. The simulated reflectivity Ze and IWC relationships assuming three idealized ice particle habits and measured particle size distributions show that hexagonal columns with the same Ze have a lower IWC than aggregates, whose Ze–IWC relation is more consistent with the observed WCR Ze and in situ IWC relation in those clouds. The 2D stereo probe (2DS) images also indicate that ice particle habit transition occurs in orographic mixed-phase clouds; hence, the retrieved IWC assuming modified gamma particle size distribution (PSD) of aggregate particles tends to have a greater bias in this kind of clouds.

A Multi-Year Study of GOES-13 Droplet Effective Radius Retrievals for Warm Clouds over South America and Southeast Pacific

Geostationary satellites can retrieve the cloud droplet effective radius (re) but suffer biases from cloud inhomogeneities, internal retrieval nonlinearities, and 3-D scattering/shadowing from neighboring clouds, among others. A 1-D retrieval method was applied to Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 13 (GOES-13) imagery, over large areas in South America (5∘ N–30∘ S; 20∘–70∘ W), the Southeast Pacific (5∘ N–30∘ S; 70∘–120∘ W), and the Amazon (2∘ N–7∘ S; 54∘–73∘ W), for four months in each year from 2014–2017. Results were compared against in situ aircraft measurements and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer cloud product for Terra and Aqua satellites. Monthly regression parameters approximately followed a seasonal pattern. With up to 108,009 of matchups, slope, intercept, and correlation for Terra (Aqua) ranged from about 0.71 to 1.17, −2.8 to 2.5 μm, and 0.61 to 0.91 (0.54 to 0.78, −1.5 to 1.8 μm, 0.63 to 0.89), respectively. We identified evidence for re overestimation (underestimation) correlated with shadowing (enhanced reflectance) in the forward (backscattering) hemisphere, and limitations to illumination and viewing configurations accessible by GOES-13, depending on the time of day and season. A proposition is hypothesized to ameliorate 3-D biases by studying relative illumination and cloud spatial inhomogeneity.

Modeling the High-resolution Emission Spectra of Clear and Cloudy Nontransiting Hot Jupiters

Abstract The advent of high-resolution spectroscopy (R ≳ 25,000) as a method for characterization of exoplanet atmospheres has expanded our capability to study nontransiting planets, vastly increasing the number of planets accessible for observation. Many of the most favorable targets for atmospheric characterization are hot Jupiters, where we expect large spatial variation in physical conditions such as temperature, wind speed, and cloud coverage, making viewing geometry important. Three-dimensional models have generally simulated observational properties of hot Jupiters assuming edge-on viewing, which can be compared to observations of transiting planets, but neglected the large fraction of planets without nearly edge-on orbits. As the first investigation of how orbital inclination manifests in high-resolution emission spectra from three-dimensional models, we use a general circulation model to simulate the atmospheric structure of Upsilon Andromedae b, a typical nontransiting hot Jupiter with high observational interest, due the brightness of its host star. We compare models with and without clouds, and find that cloud coverage intensifies spatial variations by making colder regions dimmer and relatedly enhancing emission from the clear, hotter regions. This increases both the net Doppler shifts and the variation of the continuum flux amplitude over the course of the planet’s orbit. In order to accurately capture scattering from clouds, we implement a generalized two-stream radiative transfer routine for inhomogeneous multiple scattering atmospheres. As orbital inclination decreases, four key features of the high-resolution emission spectra also decrease in both the clear and cloudy models: (1) the average continuum flux level, (2) the amplitude of the variation in continuum with orbital phase, (3) net Doppler shifts of spectral lines, and (4) Doppler broadening in the spectra. Models capable of treating inhomogeneous cloud coverage and different viewing geometries are critical in understanding results from high-resolution emission spectra, enabling an additional avenue to investigate these extreme atmospheres.

Effect of Microstructure and Horizontal Inhomogeneity of Broken Cirrus Clouds on Mean Solar Radiative Fluxes in the Visible Wavelength Region: Results of Numerical Simulation

Effect of Microstructure and Horizontal Inhomogeneity of Broken Cirrus Clouds on Mean Solar Radiative Fluxes in the Visible Wavelength Region: Results of Numerical Simulation

Star Formation Regulation and Self-pollution by Stellar Wind Feedback

Abstract Stellar winds contain enough energy to easily disrupt the parent cloud surrounding a nascent star cluster, and for this reason they have long been considered candidates for regulating star formation. However, direct observations suggest most wind power is lost, and Lancaster et al. recently proposed that this is due to efficient mixing and cooling processes. Here we simulate star formation with wind feedback in turbulent, self-gravitating clouds, extending our previous work. Our simulations cover clouds with an initial surface density of 102–104 M ⊙ pc−2 and show that star formation and residual gas dispersal are complete within two to eight initial cloud freefall times. The “efficiently cooled” model for stellar wind bubble evolution predicts that enough energy is lost for the bubbles to become momentum-driven; we find that this is satisfied in our simulations. We also find that wind energy losses from turbulent, radiative mixing layers dominate losses by “cloud leakage” over the timescales relevant for star formation. We show that the net star formation efficiency (SFE) in our simulations can be explained by theories that apply wind momentum to disperse cloud gas, allowing for highly inhomogeneous internal cloud structure. For very dense clouds, the SFE is similar to those observed in extreme star-forming environments. Finally, we find that, while self-pollution by wind material is insignificant in cloud conditions with moderate density (only ≲10−4 of the stellar mass originated in winds), our simulations with conditions more typical of a super star cluster have star particles that form with as much as 1% of their mass in wind material.

Quantitative risk assessment of gas leakage and explosion accidents and its security measures in open kitchens

In this study, a quantitative risk assessment methodology is developed for gas leakage and explosion accidents in open kitchens. Meanwhile, the corresponding security measures are investigated. The physical and computational model of a typical open kitchen and the corresponding traditional kitchen is firstly developed, using CFD code FLACS, respectively. Based on the similarity principle, a small scale low-pressure natural gas leakage and explosion experiment platform like a kitchen was constructed to validate the accuracy of CFD model. Subsequently, gas leakage and dispersion behavior is performed to analyze the gas concentration distribution. Meanwhile, a time-of-exposure model is introduced to calculate the overall ignition probability during the whole gas leakage and dispersion process. And then, the explosion simulation with a real inhomogeneous flammable gas cloud is carried out to analyze the overpressure distribution. In addition, the maximum weighted average overpressure is estimated accurately. According to the overall ignition probability and the maximum weighted average overpressure, the integrated risk caused by gas leakage and explosion accidents is assessed. Furthermore, the active and passive security measures are investigated to reduce the integrated risk in open kitchens. This methodology and its security measures are applied to a typical open kitchen, located in Harbin, China. The results show that the simulation results reproduced by the CFD model are in good agreement with the experimental results. The explosion accident probability in open kitchens is much higher than that in traditional kitchens, whereas the explosion accident consequences in open kitchens are less than that in traditional kitchens. The integrated risk in open kitchens is greater than that in traditional kitchens. These achievements provide an effective theoretical guidance and technical support for safety gas supply design of open kitchens.

Chemical evidence for planetary ingestion in a quarter of Sun-like stars

Stellar members of binary systems are formed from the same material, therefore they should be chemically identical. However, recent high-precision studies have unveiled chemical differences between the two members of binary pairs composed by Sun-like stars. The very existence of these chemically inhomogeneous binaries represents one of the most contradictory examples in stellar astrophysics and source of tension between theory and observations. It is still unclear whether the abundance variations are the result of chemical inhomogeneities in the protostellar gas clouds or instead if they are due to planet engulfment events occurred after the stellar formation. While the former scenario would undermine the belief that the chemical makeup of a star provides the fossil information of the environment where it formed, a key assumption made by several studies of our Galaxy, the second scenario would shed light on the possible evolutionary paths of planetary systems. Here, we perform a statistical study on 107 binary systems composed by Sun-like stars to provide - for the first time - unambiguous evidence in favour of the planet engulfment scenario. We also establish that planet engulfment events occur in stars similar to our own Sun with a probability ranging between 20 and 35$\%$. This implies that a significant fraction of planetary systems undergo very dynamical evolutionary paths that can critically modify their architectures, unlike our Solar System which has preserved its planets on nearly circular orbits. This study also opens to the possibility of using chemical abundances of stars to identify which ones are the most likely to host analogues of the calm Solar System.

Navigation system with SLAM-based trajectory topological map and reinforcement learning-based local planner

This paper presents a novel robotic navigation system integrating a visual simultaneous localization and mapping (V-SLAM) based global planner with a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based local planner. On one hand, map of many modern popular V-SLAM systems is inhomogeneous point cloud, which contains many outliers and is too sparse for reliable global path planning. To address this problem, we propose a novel approach to generate a topological map with both trajectories and map points of V-SLAM. On the other hand, current state-of-the-art (SOTA) DRL-based local planners have shown great efficiency in obstacle avoidance. However, the SOTA DRL-based local planners are sometimes trapped by large obstacles and would fall into some local minimum during training. To address the problems, we propose a sub-target module and a mirror experience replay approach. Test results demonstrate that, our topological map generation is robust against outliers and sparsity of map points of V-SLAM, while our local planner achieves 9.61% success rate of obstacle avoidance higher than the SOTA DRL-based approach. Tests in real environment demonstrate the feasibility of our navigation system.

Cloud-Top Height Comparison from Multi-Satellite Sensors and Ground-Based Cloud Radar over SACOL Site

Cloud-top heights (CTH), as one of the representative variables reflecting cloud macro-physical properties, affect the Earth–atmosphere system through radiation budget, water cycle, and atmospheric circulation. This study compares the CTH from passive- and active-spaceborne sensors with ground-based Ka-band zenith radar (KAZR) observations at the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL) site for the period 2013–2019. A series of fundamental statistics on cloud probability in different limited time and areas at the SACOL site reveals that there is an optimal agreement for both cloud frequency and fraction derived from space and surface observations in a 0.5° × 0.5° box area and a 40-min time window. Based on the result, several facets of cloud fraction (CF), cloud overlapping, seasonal variation, and cloud geometrical depth (CGD) are investigated to evaluate the CTH retrieval accuracy of different observing sensors. Analysis shows that the CTH differences between multi-satellite sensors and KAZR decrease with increasing CF and CGD, significantly for passive satellite sensors in non-overlapping clouds. Regarding passive satellite sensors, e.g., Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on Terra, and the Advanced Himawari Imager on Himawari-8 (HW8), a greater CTH frequency difference exists between the upper and lower altitude range, and they retrieve lower CTH than KAZR on average. The CTH accuracy of HW8 and MISR are susceptible to inhomogeneous clouds, which can be reduced by controlling the increase of CF. Besides, the CTH from active satellite sensors, e.g., Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) on CloudSat, and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) onboard Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), agree well with KAZR and are less affected by seasonal variation and inhomogeneous clouds. Only CALIPSO CTH is higher than KAZR CTH, mainly caused by the low-thin clouds, typically in overlapping clouds.

Energy and flux budget closure theory for passive scalar in stably stratified turbulence

The energy and flux budget (EFB) closure theory for a passive scalar (non-buoyant and non-inertial particles or gaseous admixtures) is developed for stably stratified turbulence. The physical background of the EFB turbulence closures is based on the budget equations for the turbulent kinetic and potential energies and turbulent fluxes of momentum and buoyancy as well as the turbulent flux of particles. The EFB turbulence closure is designed for stratified geophysical flows from neutral to very stable stratification, and it implies that turbulence is maintained by the velocity shear at any stratification. In a steady-state, expressions for the turbulent flux of the passive scalar and the anisotropic non-symmetric turbulent diffusion tensor are derived, and universal flux Richardson number dependencies of the components of this tensor are obtained. The diagonal component in the vertical direction of the turbulent diffusion tensor is suppressed by strong stratification, while the diagonal components in the horizontal directions are not suppressed, but they are dominant in comparison with the other components of the turbulent diffusion tensor. This implies that any initially created strongly inhomogeneous particle cloud is evolved into a thin pancake in a horizontal plane with very slow increase in its thickness in the vertical direction. The turbulent Schmidt number (the ratio of the eddy viscosity and the vertical turbulent diffusivity of the passive scalar) linearly increases with the gradient Richardson number. The physics of such a behavior is related to the buoyancy force that causes a correlation between fluctuations of the potential temperature and the particle number density. This correlation that is proportional to the product of the vertical turbulent particle flux and the vertical gradient of the mean potential temperature reduces the vertical turbulent particle flux. Considering the applications of these results to the atmospheric boundary-layer turbulence, the theoretical relationships are derived, which allows us to determine the turbulent diffusion tensor as a function of the vertical coordinate measured in the units of the local Obukhov length scale. The obtained relations are potentially useful in modeling applications of particle dispersion in the atmospheric boundary-layer turbulence and free atmosphere turbulence.

Design of 2D LiDAR and camera fusion system improved by differential evolutionary PID with nonlinear tracking compensator

An improved 2D LiDAR and camera fusion system is proposed for the 3D reconstruction of unknown environments. It combines the advantages of dense 2D point cloud and rich color image, adopting a differential evolutionary nonlinear tracking PID to control the pitching motion of LiDAR and camera accurately. The quadratic polynomial transition function is used to optimize the pitching trajectory. The environment was scanned by the system and converted into a 3D colored point cloud by the data fusion algorithm. The experimental results show: the proposed PID control algorithm can accurately control the pitching motion with a small average error (0.0267°) and significantly reduce the point cloud inhomogeneity (0.00698); the processing time for converting each 2D point cloud into the 3D point cloud is about 0.6 ms; combined with the data fusion algorithm, the system can obtain the dense colored 3D point cloud; compared with binocular camera, depth camera and 3D LiDAR under the condition of strong light interference, the fusion system outperforms, with the reconstruction object errors of distance, length and width of 0.23%, 0.17% and 0.46% respectively. In conclusion, the system can obtain homogeneous, and dense colored 3D point cloud in real time while ensuring stable refresh frame rate.

A survey of the linear polarization of directly imaged exoplanets and brown dwarf companions with SPHERE-IRDIS

Context. Young giant planets and brown dwarf companions emit near-infrared radiation that can be linearly polarized up to several percent. This polarization can reveal the presence of an (unresolved) circumsubstellar accretion disk, rotation-induced oblateness of the atmosphere, or an inhomogeneous distribution of atmospheric dust clouds. Aims. We aim to measure the near-infrared linear polarization of 20 known directly imaged exoplanets and brown dwarf companions. Methods. We observed the companions with the high-contrast imaging polarimeter SPHERE-IRDIS at the Very Large Telescope. We reduced the data using the IRDAP pipeline to correct for the instrumental polarization and crosstalk of the optical system with an absolute polarimetric accuracy <0.1% in the degree of polarization. We employed aperture photometry, angular differential imaging, and point-spread-function fitting to retrieve the polarization of the companions. Results. We report the first detection of polarization originating from substellar companions, with a polarization of several tenths of a percent for DH Tau B and GSC 6214-210 B in H-band. By comparing the measured polarization with that of nearby stars, we find that the polarization is unlikely to be caused by interstellar dust. Because the companions have previously measured hydrogen emission lines and red colors, the polarization most likely originates from circumsubstellar disks. Through radiative transfer modeling, we constrain the position angles of the disks and find that the disks must have high inclinations. For the 18 other companions, we do not detect significant polarization and place subpercent upper limits on their degree of polarization. We also present images of the circumstellar disks of DH Tau, GQ Lup, PDS 70, β Pic, and HD 106906. We detect a highly asymmetric disk around GQ Lup and find evidence for multiple scattering in the disk of PDS 70. Both disks show spiral-like features that are potentially induced by GQ Lup B and PDS 70 b, respectively. Conclusions. The presence of the disks around DH Tau B and GSC 6214-210 B as well as the misalignment of the disk of DH Tau B with the disk around its primary star suggest in situ formation of the companions. The non-detections of polarization for the other companions may indicate the absence of circumsubstellar disks, a slow rotation rate of young companions, the upper atmospheres containing primarily submicron-sized dust grains, and/or limited cloud inhomogeneity.

Quantitative risk assessment of gas leakage and explosion accident consequences inside residential buildings

In this study, a quantitative risk assessment methodology is developed for gas leakage and explosion accident consequences inside residential buildings. Meanwhile, the effective risk reduction measures are also proposed. The gas leakage and dispersion behavior is firstly analyzed to provide a real initial scenario for the subsequent explosion simulation using CFD code FLACS. And then, the explosion consequences with a real inhomogeneous flammable gas cloud are accurately predicted. Based on the probit model, the probabilities of different adverse impacts (i.e., eardrum rupture, lung damage and head impact) caused by gas explosion accidents are estimated, respectively. Combining the probability with the consequence severity scores, a risk-based concept is adopted to calculate the explosion risk index at any region of residential buildings. Meanwhile, the higher risk index among these adverse impacts is chosen at each grid point. In addition, a grid-based concept and isoline are further used to represent this explosion risk index. Furthermore, the effects of vent area ratio and broken pressure of glasses are investigated to propose the effective risk reduction measures. This methodology is applied to a typical residential building, located in Harbin, China. The results show that the explosion consequence severity at any region of residential buildings could be presented quantitatively. In addition, the risk region distribution of gas explosion inside residential buildings could be also identified. Furthermore, the minimum vent area ratio and the maximum broken pressure of glasses could be recommended to reduce gas explosion risk index. This study provides an effective analysis method and contributes to develop safety measures and improve the emergency response plans for gas leakage and explosion accidents inside residential buildings.

Statistical simulation of radiation transfer in horizontally inhomogeneous stratus clouds

The aim of the paper is to analyze the influence of a cloud layer horizontal inhomogeneity on radiation fluxes in the atmosphere using the models based on observation data of the optical thickness for stratus clouds. To reproduce the correlation structure and one-dimensional distributions of the observed stratus optical thickness fields we have developed numerical stochastic cloud models based on the inverse distribution function method and autoregressive schemes. We used Monte Carlo methods to simulate the radiation fluxes for visible and infrared ranges of wavelength.

An Efficient and Accurate Algorithm for Computing Grid-Averaged Solar Fluxes for Horizontally Inhomogeneous Clouds

Abstract A computationally efficient method is presented to account for the horizontal cloud inhomogeneity by using a radiatively equivalent plane-parallel homogeneous (PPH) cloud. The algorithm can accurately match the calculations of the reference (rPPH) independent column approximation (ICA) results but uses only the same computational time required for a single plane-parallel computation. The effective optical depth of this synthetic sPPH cloud is derived by exactly matching the direct transmission to that of the inhomogeneous ICA cloud. The effective scattering asymmetry factor is found from a precalculated albedo inverse lookup table that is allowed to vary over the range from −1.0 to 1.0. In the special cases of conservative scattering and total absorption, the synthetic method is exactly equivalent to the ICA, with only a small bias (about 0.2% in flux) relative to ICA resulting from imperfect interpolation in using the lookup tables. In principle, the ICA albedo can be approximated accurately regardless of cloud inhomogeneity. For a more complete comparison, the broadband shortwave albedo and transmission calculated from the synthetic sPPH cloud and averaged over all incident directions have RMS biases of 0.26% and 0.76%, respectively, for inhomogeneous clouds over a wide variation of particle size. The advantages of the synthetic PPH method are that 1) it is not required that all the cloud subcolumns have uniform microphysical characteristic, 2) it is applicable to any 1D radiative transfer scheme, and 3) it can handle arbitrary cloud optical depth distributions and an arbitrary number of cloud subcolumns with uniform computational efficiency.

Dependence of cloud radiation on cloud overlap, horizontal inhomogeneity, and vertical alignment in stratiform and convective regions

In this study, the dependence of cloud radiation on several cloud subgrid-scale structures that are unresolved by conventional climate models is explored, using datasets produced by a cloud-resolving model for both stratiform and convective clouds. These subgrid-scale structural parameters to be investigated are decorrelation length Lcf for overlapping of cloud fraction, Lcw for overlapping cloud condensate, and shape parameter v for measuring cloud inhomogeneity. It is found the decorrelation length Lcw has a similar role to the inhomogeneity parameter v in modulating cloud radiative effects (CREs), with increasing (decreasing) Lcw generally leading to a weakening (enhancing) of CREs, which is equivalent to increasing (decreasing) v in individual layers. However, the uncertainty of CREs caused by changes in Lcw is relatively smaller than that induced by changes in v, with the former about twice smaller than the latter. For fractional clouds with multiple layers, it is revealed that cloud overlap parameter Lcf exerts impacts on radiative transfer process first and foremost, and the inhomogeneity parameter v is of secondary importance, followed by the alignment parameter Lcw, which renders moderate modulation that can not be neglected. This study also highlights the importance of the vertically varying structure of v in cloud radiation. The simulated CREs and radiative heating fields can be significantly biased if these varying characteristics are missing, even if the obtained variability of cloud water path is close to reality. This calls for more attention to the vertical structure of v in parameterization development, which is however neglected or poorly represented in the literature.

A Numerical Study of Effects of Radiation on Deep Convective Warm Based Cumulus Cloud Development with a 3-D Radiative Transfer Model

The effects of radiation heating and cooling on cumulus cloud development have been the focus of considerable attention for many years. However, it is still not clear how radiation impacts cloud droplet growth. Since cloud inhomogeneity has a great influence on radiation transmission, we coupled the 3D atmospheric radiative transfer model using the spherical harmonic discrete ordinate method with WRF-LES, which can improve the simulation accuracy of the inhomogeneous effect of clouds on radiation compared with that of the 1D radiation method. The shortwave and longwave radiation fluxes for upward and downward directions were simulated with different solar zenith angles. The comparison of 1D and 3D radiative solvers for deep convective cloud cases shows that the 3D radiative solver provides an accurate structure of solar and thermal radiation characteristics and the spatial distribution field. The solar radiation heating is likely to increase perpendicular to the solar incidence direction. For longwave radiation, the cooling effect on the cloud top and the heating effect on the cloud base are both more intense in the 3D radiation model. This study focuses on 3D cloud-radiative interactions in an inhomogeneous cloud field in a large eddy simulation, and the results suggest that compared with the widely used 1D radiative solver in WRF, the 3D radiation model can provide a precise description of the radiation field in an inhomogeneous atmosphere.