Diurnal variation of cloud ice mass in the tropical upper troposphere as observed by SMILES
The sub-millimeter-wave limb-sounder SMILES onboard the International Space Station (ISS) provided quasi-continuous observations of the average diurnal cycle of cloud ice mass in the tropical upper troposphere from October 2009 to April 2010. First results are presented here and compared to earlier observations. The strongest diurnal variation are found over tropical Africa and South America, with the maximum occurring in the late afternoon in both regions.
The diurnal variation over the tropical ocean regions are smaller than over land, and the maxima occur in the early night or early morning. Mean cloud ice mass values are to a large extent determined by the ~10% of the states with most cloud ice mass and are only relatively high for a few hours after the maxima. We argue that sedimentation should be the main removal mechanism for most cloud ice mass, due to the fairly short lifetime and the fact that the surrounding air should be close to saturation with respect to ice.
This presentation was given at the 6th Limb Conference in Kyoto, Japan.
Created 2011-12-03 01:35:55 by Uwe Raffalski Last changed 2011-12-03 01:39:03 by Uwe Raffalski
