Observation of thin and subvisible cirrus in the tropics and mid latitudes.


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fimmler [ at ] awi-potsdam.de

Abstract

Cirrus clouds were observed with a mobile Aerosol Raman Lidar (MARL) during field campaigns in the mid latitudes in2003(Lindenberg/Germany, 53°N, 15°E) and in the tropics in 2004/05 (Paramaribo/Suriname, 6°, 55°W). Our lidar system, is capable of detecting thin cirrus including extremely thin clouds with an optical depth below 10−3. The system measures cloud altitudes with high vertical and temporal resolution and determines the depolarisationand optical depth. It can measure during day - and night-time. In daytime cloud types including contrails are classified by means of a video camera. During the campaigns, water vapour was measured bymeans of balloon borne probes (Vaisala RS80/RS90, Snow white frost point hygrometer) and by the LIDAR using the Raman technique. In the mid latitudes cirrus were found in 55% of the measurements. In the tropics the cloudiness in the upper troposphere was found to be very high, since in about 90% of all measured profiles cirrus was present. Transport processes in the tropical tropopause layer were investigated with a newly developed trajectory model which is coupled with a radiative transfer model. Cloud occurrence and dehydration of the air in the model agrees well with the observations.



Item Type
Conference (Talk)
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Published
Event Details
DPG Frühjahrstagung, Heidelberg.-16.03.2006..
Eprint ID
15015
Cite as
Immler, F. and Schrems, O. (2006): Observation of thin and subvisible cirrus in the tropics and mid latitudes. , DPG Frühjahrstagung, Heidelberg.-16.03.2006. .


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