Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ferlay, Nicolas
• Garrett, Timothy J
• Minvielle, Fanny

Titel

Satellite Observations of an Unusual Cloud Formation near the Tropopause

Ist Teil von

• Journal of the atmospheric sciences, 2014-10, Vol.71 (10), p.3801-3815

Ort / Verlag

Boston: American Meteorological Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Abstract This paper describes observations of a field of deep and regular cloud formations that spans several hundreds of kilometers at the top of a midlatitude frontal system in the North Pacific storm track. Space-based imagery of the event from active and passive measurements reveals smooth, clearly defined cloud lobes approximately 10 km across and 2–4 km deep that resemble upside-down mammatus. These observations, together with theoretical arguments and prior modeling work, suggest that the lobes were part of a deepening turbulent mixed layer that formed as a consequence of strong cloud-top radiative cooling. Over the course of a day, the cloud-top formation evolved to leave behind a sheet of cumuliform cirrus that stretched hundreds of kilometers across. The potential is for such clouds to facilitate mixing across the tropopause, much as cloud-top cooling drives the entrainment of free-tropospheric air into stratocumulus-topped boundary layers.