Upper tropospheric cloud systems derived from IR sounders: properties of cirrus anvils in the tropics

Protopapadaki, Sofia E.; Stubenrauch, Claudia J.; Feofilov, Artem G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3845-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3845-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3845-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

Research article

|

21 Mar 2017

Research article |

| 21 Mar 2017

Upper tropospheric cloud systems derived from IR sounders: properties of cirrus anvils in the tropics

Sofia E. Protopapadaki, Claudia J. Stubenrauch, and Artem G. Feofilov

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3845-2017-supplement

Data sets

AMSR-E/Aqua L2B Global Swath Rain Rate/Type GSFC Profiling Algorithm, Version 2 R. Adler, T. Wilheit Jr., C. Kummerow, and R. Ferraro https://doi.org/10.5067/AMSR-E/AE_RAIN.002

LMD Cloud Retrieval using IR sounders, Algorithm Theoretical Basis, CIRS-LMD software package V2 A. Feofilov and C. Stubenrauch https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.15812.63361

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Short summary

Upper tropospheric clouds cover about 30 % of the Earth and play a key role in the climate system by modulating the Earth's energy budget and heat transport. In this article, we study upper tropospheric cloud systems using cloud properties deduced from infrared sounders. Our analyses show that the size of the systems as well as the fraction of thin cirrus over the total anvil area increases with increasing convective depth.