Investigating the Role of Aersols and Clouds on the Radiation Budget in Niamey, Niger

Many uncertainties exist in the formation and transition between open and closed cell marine stratocumulus clouds. Often covering a large area of Earth, marine stratocumulus can have a large global impact on the radiation budget, making it crucial to understand all of the details surrounding their formation, life cycle, and impacts. The objective of this study is to classify marine stratocumulus clouds into non-celluar, open celled, and closed cell groups. The study uses a combination of surface and remotely-sensed data collected using the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program's Mobile Facility (AMF) while it was deployed on Graciosa, Island in the Azores in support of the Clouds, Aerosols, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer (CAP-MBL) project. The study also uses coincident measurements from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) aboard Meteosat-8. This combination of platforms has the advantage of continuously monitoring marine stratocumulus structure at Graciosa Island, which will be the location of a new, fixed ARM Site. A scheme is developed that classifies marine stratocumulus into non-celluar, open celled, and closed cell modes using these data, and composites of these structures are shown.