Cloud vertical structure and radiative heating profile during TOGA COARE

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) are derived in this study. First, the cloud vertical structure is deduced 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 top of the atmosphere (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 TOA observations and are much better than those of the standard version of the CRM.