Benchmarking the Performance of Air Force Weather Cloud Analyses and Forecasts Using Surface-Based Lidar and Radar Data

The 557th Weather Wing of the US Air Force generates a cloud analysis product that is used to initialize two cloud forecast models which support Department of Defense missions around the world. The World-Wide Merged Cloud Analysis (WWMCA) is created hourly using the timeliest data from 16 geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites. The WWMCA feeds a short term Advected Cloud (ADVCLD) model and a long term Diagnostic Cloud Forecast (DCF) model which provides 3D cloud forecasts out to 5 days. WWMCA and ADVCLD are created on the same polar stereographic 24 km grid for each hemisphere. The DCF is created on the 0.25 degree Global Air-Land Weather Exploitation Model (GALWEM) domain that also acts as input for the DCF.

Traditionally, the WWMCA has been used to verify both the ADVCLD and the DCF. Work has been done in recent years to incorporate independent spaceborne and surface-based datasets into the model verification process. This presentation will focus on verifying WWMCA, ADVCLD, and DCF using surface-based lidar and radar data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) and Aerosols, Clouds and Trace gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) sites. Data from these surface-based sites cover a variety of climate regions, providing an important opportunity to verify 2D and 3D cloud products in different parts of the world.