The 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography

6.1
SUMMERTIME ARCTIC CLOUDS AND RADIATION OVER SHEBA

Timothy C. Benner, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO; and J. A. Curry

This study examines the effects of inhomogeneities in surface and cloud properties on solar and longwave radiative transfer in the Arctic. We concentrate on one case study from the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) field mission, using aircraft data from the NCAR C-130 and surface-based data from the SHEBA camp to examine the radiative effects of broken clouds over the melting ice surface in July over the Arctic Ocean. From these combined measurements we derive 2-D cloud and surface properties and infer 3-D cloud properties. We then use the Spherical Harmonics Discrete Ordinate Method (SHDOM) model to simulate the complex 2-D and 3-D transfer of solar and longwave radiation in this environment. We pay special attention to the spatial variability in radiative fluxes introduced by the spatially varying surface and cloud fields. We assess the sensitivity of the radiation fluxes to the nature of the cloud and
surface inhomogeneities

The 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography