Środowiskowe Seminarium Fizyki Atmosfery

Improving methods for automatic and continuous description of cloud has a huge importance in order to determine the role of clouds in climate and their contribution to climate change. The geometric characteristics of clouds, such as the cloud cover and the cloud vertical structure (CVS), including the cloud base height (CBH) which is linked to cloud type, are very important for describing the impact clouds have on the atmosphere.It will be presented a complete study of the cloud cover and the CBH above Girona (Spain) measured with a ceilometer, during the period 2007-2010. In addition, a comparison of the CVS obtained from methods based on radiosonde profiles with estimations produced by ground-based active instruments (that is, the Active Remote Sensing of Clouds –ARSCL) over Southern Great Plains (USA) will also be presented in order to find the better approximation to the real vertical structure and reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the methods. This study considers more methods than the existent publications at the moment, and it compares retrievals against a reliable reference (ARSCL) with precision and for an accurately selected set of cases.