Session 3A Clouds and Climate

Monday, 7 January 2019: 2:00 PM-4:00 PM
North 121BC (Phoenix Convention Center - West and North Buildings)
Host: 32nd Conference on Climate Variability and Change
Cochairs:
James F. Booth, City Univ. of New York, New York, NY and Catherine M. Naud, Columbia Univ., Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics/NASA-GISS, New York, NY

Cloud cover in the midlatitudes plays an important role in the Earth’s radiative balance. The heating associated with the clouds might also impact atmospheric circulation. On the other hand, it has long been accepted that organized atmospheric circulation systems such as fronts, anticyclones, and cold air outbreaks all can generate clouds. However, a robust characterization of the role of clouds in climate variability, especially over the oceans, has only recently been made possible due to an expanding observations network. At this time, there is an ever-expanding set of literature on the behavior and trends of midlatitude clouds and their representation in numerical weather and climate models. Therefore, this session seeks to bring together and report on recent research on the physics of midlatitude clouds and the relationship between the clouds and climate variability. The session seeks to span multiple temporal and spatial scales, with an interest in understanding the relative roles of: (i) boundary layer processes, (ii) synoptic circulation, and (iii) microphysics. The session also invites studies that focus on how cloud radiative forcing can impact local and remote atmospheric dynamics.

Papers:
2:00 PM
3A.1
Observed and Modeled Cloud Responses to Interannual Climate Variability
Andrew Geiss, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; and R. T. Marchand
2:15 PM
3A.2
Boundary Layer Clouds in the Midlatitudes: Environmental Controls in Post-Cold Frontal Regions
Catherine Naud, Columbia Univ./NASA GISS, New York, NY; and J. F. Booth and F. Lamraoui
2:30 PM
3A.3
Examining the Fidelity of Cloud Optical Properties and Overlap Statistics through Comparisons of Radiative Transfer and Cloud Resolving Models against AIRS Observations
Tianhao Le, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; and C. Li, V. Natraj, X. Zhang, A. J. Braverman, and Y. Yung
2:45 PM
3A.4
Exploring Radiative Influence on Extratropical Cyclone Development and Sensitivity
Gregory Tierney, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC; and D. J. Posselt and J. F. Booth
3:15 PM
3A.6
Examining Precipitation and Radiative Impacts of Convection in the Tropical Atlantic
Juliet A. Pilewskie, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI; and T. L'Ecuyer
3:30 PM
3A.7
Nonlinearity in the Climate Response to Greenhouse Gas and Aerosol Forcing
Zhaoyi Shen, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; and Y. Ming
3:45 PM
3A.8
Band-by-Band Contributions to the Longwave Cloud Radiative Feedbacks
Xianglei Huang, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; and X. Chen and Q. Yue
- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner