Tropical cloud and precipitation regimes and vertical structures as seen by simultaneous TRMM, CloudSat, and CALIPSO observations

Abstract:

Although TRMM and CloudSat/CALIPSO fly in different orbits, they frequently cross each other. Over the period from August 2006 to December 2010, a total of 10,111 CloudSat/CALIPSO-TRMM intersects were observed within 20 minutes of each other between 30S-30N. This presents an opportunity to exploit the synergy among these different active sensors in depicting tropical cloud and precipitation vertical structures. In this study, we use a K-means cluster analysis to examine these coincident TRMM, CloudSat and CALIPSO observations. Four different cloud and precipitation regimes emerge that correspond to, respectively, 1) deep convective clouds, 2) cirrus anvils, 3) mixture of thin cirrus and precipitating low clouds, and 4) mixture of thin cirrus and non-precipitating low clouds. A comparison with collocated ISCCP Weather State cloud regime data was conducted. Similarities and differences are presented and discussed.