How does land cover and its heterogeneity length scales affect the formation of summertime shallow cumulus clouds in observations from the US Southern Great Plains?

Tian, Jingjing; Zhang, Yunyan; Klein, Stephen A.; Öktem, Rusen; Wang, Likun

doi:10.1029/2021GL097070

i

How does land cover and its heterogeneity length scales affect the formation of summertime shallow cumulus clouds in observations from the US Southern Great Plains?

Supporting Files

2022
By Tian, Jingjing ; Zhang, Yunyan ; Klein, Stephen A. ; ...

Details

Journal Title:

Geophysical Research Letters
Personal Author:

Tian, Jingjing ; Zhang, Yunyan ; Klein, Stephen A. ; Öktem, Rusen ; Wang, Likun
NOAA Program & Office:

CISESS (Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies)
Description:

This study investigates the effects of heterogeneous land covers on shallow cumulus (ShCu) clouds at the US Southern Great Plains using high-resolution satellite and land cover data. During late summer, ShCu occurs over cities the most frequently and over open waters the least frequently, and more often over forest than over grassland. The preferential occurrence of ShCu over forest relative to grassland is consistent with surface measurements showing larger heat fluxes over forests. This preferential occurrence also varies with the length scales of land patches with the largest cloud occurrence difference shifting from smaller length scales (<9 km) during midday to larger scales (>9 km) in the early afternoon. Consistent with theory, these signals are more pronounced under low wind conditions. The preferential length scale shift with time suggests the existence of secondary circulations that strengthen and promote convergence over larger spatial scales as the differential land surface heating intensifies.
Keywords:

Clouds Remote Sensing Remote Sensing
Source:

Geophysical Research Letters 49(7), e2021GL097070
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL097070
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA19NES4320002
Place as Subject:

Great Plains
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY-NC-ND
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:62607d42ee666fcc18c52030241011478f21a79ab6d685b0801b3cb8454eb0c0
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/48115/noaa_48115_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 2.12 MB ]

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