Cloud vertical structure, radiative heating profile and diurnal variation during TOGA COARE

This thesis consists of two parts: (1) the vertical structure of clouds and radiative heating during TOGA COARE and (2) diurnal variations during TOGA COARE.; The purpose of the first part (Chapter 1) is to determine a realistic gridded (1 degree by 1 degree) cloud vertical structure and radiative heating profile for the Intensive Flux Array (IFA) during the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE). First, we deduce the cloud vertical structure from the sounding data using an improved relative humidity (RH) threshold method. The RH threshold is height-dependent and is tuned by three surface and TOA observations of clouds: the Micropulse Lidar (MPL), the High-Resolution Infrared Sounder (HIRS) and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). Then, a modified CCM3 Column Radiation Model (CRM) is used to calculate the radiative heating profiles. The modification of the CRM replaces the model microphysics with the observed microphysics profiles. The calculated radiation budgets are shown to be consistent with the surface and top of the atmosphere (TOA) observations and are much better than those of the standard version of the CRM.; The purpose of the second part (Chapter 2) is to test different diurnal variation mechanisms, that have been proposed in previous studies, by using the abundant observational data obtained during TOGA COARE. The preliminary findings are: (1) The stratiform precipitation lags the convective precipitation, suggesting that the effect of the life cycle of the mesoscale convective systems (MCS) is important to the midnight rainfall maximum; i.e., the stratiform component helps to shift the maximum toward midnight. This supports the MCS life cycle mechanism. (2) This study supports the direct radiation-convection interaction mechanism and emphasize that the variation is strongly affected by the variation of upper-level clouds. (3) The current study does not, however, support the day versus night radiation-subsidence mechanism. The vertical motion in the undisturbed region might be partly forced by the disturbed region, rather than by local radiative cooling. (4) Also, the current study does not support the large-scale radiative destabilization mechanism as the cause of the nocturnal maximum of total precipitation, although it may contribute to the evening maximum of the convective component of precipitation.