The diurnal stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition over land in southern West Africa

Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, Xabier; de Roode, Stephan R.; Adler, Bianca; Babić, Karmen; Dione, Cheikh; Kalthoff, Norbert; Lohou, Fabienne; Lothon, Marie; Vilà-Guerau de Arellano, Jordi

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2735-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2735-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Results of the project "Dynamics–aerosol–chemistry–cloud...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2735-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 5

Research article

|

05 Mar 2020

Research article |

| 05 Mar 2020

The diurnal stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition over land in southern West Africa

Xabier Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, Stephan R. de Roode, Bianca Adler, Karmen Babić, Cheikh Dione, Norbert Kalthoff, Fabienne Lohou, Marie Lothon, and Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano

Data sets

DACCIWA field campaign, Savè super-site, UPS instrumentation S. Derrien, Y. Bezombes, G. Bret, O. Gabella, C. Jarnot, P. Medina, E. Piques, C. Delon, C. Dione, B. Campistron, P. Durand, C. Jambert, F. Lohou, M. Lothon, F. Pacifico, and Y. Meyerfeld, Y. https://doi.org/10.6096/dacciwa.1618

DACCIWA field campaign, Savè super-site, Cloud and precipitation J. Handwerker, S. Scheer, and T. Gamer https://doi.org/10.6096/dacciwa.1686

DACCIWA field campaign, Savè super-site, Surface measurements M. Kohler, N. Kalthoff, J. Seringer, and S. Kraut https://doi.org/10.6096/dacciwa.1690

Model code and software

DALES code Wageningen University, Delft University of Technology and KNMI https://github.com/dalesteam/dales

Short summary

Using a high-resolution model we simulate the transition from night to day clouds on southern West Africa using observations from the DACCIWA project. We find that the radiative effects of clouds help mantain a thick cloud layer in the night, while the mixing of cloud air with air above during the day, aided by moisture and heat fluxes at the surface, thins this layer and promotes its transition to other clouds. The effect of changing wind with height accelerates the transition.