studyonmacro-andmicro-physicalpropertiesofstratusand（studyonmacro-andmicro-physicalpropertiesofstratusand）.docVIP

An analysis of statistical characteristics of stratus and stratocumulus over Eastern Pacific Short title: Cloud properties over Eastern Pacific Mingyu Zhou1,2 Xubin Zeng1 Michael Brunke1 Zhanhai Zhang3 Chris Fairall4 Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Physics-Atmospheric Sciences Bldg., P.O. Box 210081, Tucson, AZ 85721-0081, U.S.A. National Marine Environmental Forecasts Center, 8 Dahuishi, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China. Polar Research Institute of China, 451 Jinqiao Road, Shanghai 200136, China. NOAA/Environmental Technology Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, U.S.A. Observational measurements of cloud base, top, thickness, fraction, and liquid water path (LWP) are analyzed to study the macro- and micro-physical properties of stratus and stratocumulus over the eastern Pacific. It is found that the increase in liquid water content with height in cloud is significantly less than the adiabatic rate. The variations of cloud base and top both contribute to the variation of cloud thickness that approximately fits a normal distribution better than either cloud base or top. Because the distribution of LWP depends on the intervals of cloud fraction (or other environmental variables, e.g., relative humidity), the determination of cloud fraction from the mean LWP alone would introduce large uncertainties particularly when LWP is large. Introduction Clouds strongly affect the earth’s climate due to their influence on radiation. The treatment of cloud properties, e.g., cloud fraction (CF), condensate and its horizontal distribution, is still poor in weather and climate models. For instance, most models estimate CF based on the mean relative humidity or the relative humidity combined with cloud liquid water content (LWC) in a grid box. In the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM3), while LWC is computed prognostically, marine stratocumulus CF is empirically diagnosed