P1A.12 Cloud vertical structure over the Bay of Bengal and eastern tropical Pacific

Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Palms ABCD (Wyndham Orlando Resort)
Paquita Zuidema, Univ. of Miami/RSMAS, Miami, FL

The cloud vertical structure associated with monsoon onset at the middle of the Bay of Bengal (11N, 89E) is examined using a ship-based cloud radar. It is compared to similar data from the eastern tropical Pacific, and to four months of similarly-located CloudSat data. Both radar datasets find relatively more cloudiness at 10-km altitude over the Bay of Bengal than over the eastern tropical Pacific, and more low-level cloudiness over the eastern tropical Pacific than over the Bay of Bengal. This is consistent with buoyancy-sorting model calculations, but advection of ice clouds by upper-level easterly winds is also thought to contribute to the upper-tropospheric Bay of Bengal cloudiness. Melting-level cloud populations differ between the datasets and regions.
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