Relevance of the Microphysical and Radiative Properties of Cirrus Clouds to Climate and Climatic Feedback.

摘要

This reprint examines the effects of the relationship between cirrus cloud ice water content and cloud temperature on climate change. A simple mechanistic climate model is used to study the feedback between ice water content and temperature. The central question studied in this paper concerns the extent to which both the radiative and microphysical properties of cirrus cloud influence such a feedback. To address this question, a parameterization of the albedo and emissivity of clouds is introduced. Observations that relate the ice water content to cloud temperature are incorporated in the parameterization to introduce a temperature dependence to both albedo and emittance. The cloud properties relevant to the cloud feedback are expressed as functions of particles size r sub e, asymmetry parameter g and cloud temperature and analyses of aircraft measurements, lidar and ground based radiometer data are used to select r sub e and g. It was shown that scattering calculations assuming spherical particles with a distribution described by r sub e = 16 microns reasonably matched the lidar and radiometer data. However, comparison of cloud radiation properties measured from aircraft to those parameterized in this study required values of g significantly smaller than those derived for spheres but consistent with out understanding of non-spherical particle scattering. Keywords: Cloud microphysics; Radiative transfer. (kr)