Articles | Volume 19, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-5635-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-5635-2019
Research article
 | 
30 Apr 2019
Research article |  | 30 Apr 2019

Heuristic estimation of low-level cloud fraction over the globe based on a decoupling parameterization

Sungsu Park and Jihoon Shin

Data sets

Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive (EECRA) from Ships and Land Stations Over the Globe Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center/U.S. Navy/U. S. Department of Defense, Department of Atmospheric Science/University of Washington, Department of Atmospheric Sciences/University of Arizona, and National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Weather Service/NOAA/U.S. Department of Commerce http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds292.2/

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Short summary
Clouds exert substantial impacts on the global radiation budget and hydrological cycle. We propose a new proxy for the observed low-level cloud amount (LCA), so-called ELF (estimated low-level cloud fraction), and we show that ELF achieves the unprecedented best performance in diagnosing spatiotemporal variations of the observed LCA. Our study can be used to evaluate the performance of GCMs, identify the source of inaccurate simulation of LCA, and better understand climate sensitivity.
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