Clouds, convection and precipitation processes are central components of Earth's weather and climate. They are produced by atmospheric motions across a very wide range of space-time scales from local weather to long-term global climate variation. They feedback on these motions by perturbing the heating/cooling that drive the atmospheric circulation. These processes also perturb the oceanic circulation and land surface properties that affect the atmospheric circulation.

Because of the coupling of the atmosphere-ocean-land system across all scales by cloud, convection and precipitation processes, studying their behaviors requires measurements in space-time variations across all these scales simultaneously. Satellite constellations with global coverage and high time resolution offer the ideal platforms for such observations. This book summarizes some of the latest research using combinations of various satellite observations to study these processes and to evaluate their representations in global weather and climate models.

Included with this publication are downloadable electronic slides and accompanying notes of each lecture for students, teachers, and public speakers around the world to be better able to understand cloud, convection and precipitation processes.

Contents:

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  Clouds, Convection and Precipitation:

  
  
  
  
  • Convection as a Regulator of the Earth's Climate (Anthony D Del Genio)
  
  
  • A Satellite-based Estimate of Convective Mass Flux: Methodology, Validation and Applications (Zhengzhao Johnny Luo)
  
  
  • Convective Core, Detrainment Level, and Convective Dilution: New Perspectives Based on Five Years of CloudSat Data (Hanii Takahashi)
  
  
  • Cloud Life Cycle and Space-Time Organization (Luiz A T Machado)
  
  
  • The Role of Deep Convection on the Initiation of African Easterly Waves (Ademe Mekonnen)
  
  
  • Examining Global Precipitation with Mesoscale Atmospheric Systems Represented by Cloud Regimes (Jackson Tan)
  
  
  • Satellite-derived Water Vapor Transport — Use for Diagnosing the Tropical Circulation Change (B J Sohn)
  
  
  
  


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  Clouds and Radiation:

  
  
  
  
  • Understanding Global Cloud Radiative Impacts (Lazaros Oreopoulos)
  
  
  • Calculation, Evaluation and Application of Long-term, Global Radiative Flux Datasets at ISCCP: Past and Present (Yuanchong Zhang, William B Rossow, Andrew A Lacis and Valdar Oinas)
  
  
  • Cirrus Clouds Observed from Himawari-8 (Toshiro Inoue, Hiroshi Ishimoto, Masahiro Hayashi, and Johannes Schmetz)
  
  
  
  


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  Cloud Modeling and Model Evaluations:

  
  
  
  
  • Organized Convection Parameterization for GCMs (Mitch W Moncrieff)
  
  
  • Cloud Updrafts, Climate Forcing and Climate Sensitivity (Leo Donner)
  
  
  • Use of Satellite Observations in Climate Model Evaluation of Clouds: A Time History Based on the NASA/GISS MODEL (George Tselioudis)
  
  
  • The Role of Upper Tropospheric Cloud Systems in Climate: Building Observational Metrics for Process Evaluation Studies (Claudia J Stubenrauch)
  
  
  • Clouds and Precipitation in Extratropical Cyclones: A Global Satellite Climatology for GCM Evaluation (Catherine M Naud)
  
  
  
  

Readership: Weather and climate professionals and students as well as others studying the Earth's environment.