Cloud heterogeneity in the marine midlatitudes: Dependence on large‐scale meteorology and implications for general circulation models

Journal of Geophysical Research (2019)

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018JD029826

We examine the sensitivity of cloud heterogeneity to large‐scale meteorology in the marine midlatitudes using satellite observations from the Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instruments aboard the Terra satellite and nudged simulations from the UK Met Office’s Global Atmosphere 7.0 (GA7) for the year 2007.

Using Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer observations, we quantify several sources of observational uncertainty due to cloud heterogeneity.

We show that these are maximized in post–cold‐frontal conditions, where scattered subpixel clouds are frequent, and are minimized in the warm sector, where subpixel clouds are infrequent. These results suggest a systematic error in the subgrid‐scale variability parameterization.