A global survey of cloud overlap based on CALIPSO and CloudSat measurements

Temporal and Spatial Variations of Global Deep Cloud Systems Based on CloudSat and CALIPSO Satellite Observations

The spatial and temporal global distribution of deep clouds was analyzed using a four-year dataset (2007–10) based on observations from CloudSat and CALIPSO. Results showed that in the Northern Hemisphere, the number of deep cloud systems (DCS) reached a maximum in summer and a minimum in winter. Seasonal variations in the number of DCS varied zonally in the Southern Hemisphere. DCS occurred mo...

A global survey of aerosol-liquid water cloud overlap based on four years of CALIPSO-CALIOP data

Simulating the radiative impacts of aerosols located above liquid water clouds presents a significant challenge. In particular, absorbing aerosols, such as smoke, may have significant impact in such situations and even change the sign of net radiative forcing. It is not possible to reliably obtain information on such overlap events from existing passive satellite sensors. However, the CALIOP in...

A Global View of Midlevel Liquid-Layer Topped Stratiform Cloud Distribution and Phase Partition from CALIPSO and CloudSat Measurements

A CloudSat–CALIPSO View of Cloud and Precipitation Properties across Cold Fronts over the Global Oceans

The distribution of cloud and precipitation properties across oceanic extratropical cyclone cold fronts is examined using four years of combinedCloudSat radar andCALIPSO lidar retrievals. The global annual mean cloud and precipitation distributions show that low-level clouds are ubiquitous in the postfrontal zone while higher-level cloud frequency and precipitation peak in the warm sector along...

Arctic cloud macrophysical characteristics from CloudSat and CALIPSO

a r t i c l e i n f o The lidar and radar profiling capabilities of the CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder (CALIPSO) satellites provide opportunities to improve the characterization of cloud properties. An Arctic cloud climatology based on their observations may be fundamentally different from earlier Arctic cloud climatologies based on passive satellite observations, whic...