Absorption of solar radiation by clouds: Interpretations of satellite, surface, and aircraft measurements
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Author/Creator
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
1996-10-01
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Citation of Original Publication
Cess, R. D., Zhang, M. H., Zhou, Y., Jing, X., and Dvortsov, V. (1996), Absorption of solar radiation by clouds: Interpretations of satellite, surface, and aircraft measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 101( D18), 23299– 23309, doi:10.1029/96JD02156.
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©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved
Subjects
Abstract
To investigate the absorption of shortwave radiation by clouds, we have collocated satellite and surface measurements of shortwave radiation at several locations. Considerable effort has been directed toward understanding and minimizing sampling errors caused by the satellite measurements being instantaneous and over a grid that is much larger than the field of view of an upward facing surface pyranometer. The collocated data indicate that clouds absorb considerably more shortwave radiation than is predicted by theoretical models. This is consistent with the finding from both satellite and aircraft measurements that observed clouds are darker than model clouds. In the limit of thick clouds, observed top-of-the-atmosphere albedos do not exceed a value of 0.7, whereas in models the maximum albedo can be 0.8.