Publication Date
16 May 2016
Clouds at Barbados are Representative of Clouds across the Trade-Wind Regions in Observations and Climate Models
Science
This paper shows that clouds near Barbados exhibit similar properties to those over much of the tropical oceans. This finding allows observations taken at Barbados to be generalized to the broader tropics.
Impact
The same approach is applied to climate models to show that errors in simulated clouds near Barbados are similar to errors across the tropical oceans. The errors are related to the representation of the vertical structure of clouds and the boundary layer and the underlying turbulent and convective mixing that create the clouds.
Summary
Because trade wind clouds are a key contribution to the spread in climate model estimates of climate sensitivity, improvements in these clouds could reduce uncertainty in climate projections.
Point of Contact
Brian Medeiros
Institution(s)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
Funding Program Area(s)
Publication
“Clouds At Barbados Are Representative Of Clouds Across The Trade-Wind Regions In Observations And Climate Models”. 2016. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.1521494113.