season) and FluAmazon (Amazon Water Vapor Flux Experiment) are used to investigate the cloud
organization and the energy budget. The relation between the cloud cover variability and the cloud
organization with the different terms of the energy budget equations were examined. The radiosonde data
were used to compute the energy divergence flux for each triangle composed by three radiosonde stations.
ERBE (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment) data were used to compute the radiative flux in the top of the
atmosphere. The cloud cover variability and cloud organization were computed from the ISCCP (International
Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) data.
Cloud cover fluctuation during both experiments shows an important interdiurnal variability as a result of the
large convective systems crossing the experiment area. Those systems were not frequent in time, however,
they were responsible for most of the total cloud cover.
During the experiments, the solar energy absorbed by the surface was always smaller than the total surface
flux supplied to the atmosphere during convective events and always larger than the total surface flux
supplied to the atmosphere during non-convective events. This means that the surface loses more energy than
it receives in convective events and vice-versa. The quantity of energy stored at the surface seems to be
limited, defining a time scale, during which the surface needs to export or receive energy to control its deficit
or gain of energy. A physical mechanism is proposed to explain how the surface and the atmosphere control
their deficit/excess of energy. <
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