Major characteristics of Southern Ocean cloud regimes and their effects on the energy budget

Abstract

Clouds over the Southern Ocean are often poorly represented by climate models, but they make a significant contribution to the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation balance, particularly in the shortwave portion of the energy spectrum. This study seeks to better quantify the organization and structure of Southern Hemisphere midlatitude clouds by combining measurements from active and passive satellite-based datasets. Geostationary and polarorbiter satellite data from the International SatelliteCloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) are used to quantify largescale, recurringmodes of cloudiness, and active observations fromCloudSat and Cloud-AerosolLidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (C..