Assessing the impact of the Kuroshio Current on vertical cloud structure using CloudSat data
A. Yamauchi
(School of Fisheries Science and Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan)
K. Kawamoto
(School of Fisheries Science and Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan)
A. Manda
(School of Fisheries Science and Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan)
A. Manda
(Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Graduate School of Bioresources, Mie University, Mie, Japan)
J. Li
(Key Laboratory for Semi-Arid Climate Change of the Ministry of Education, College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China)
This study analyzed CloudSat satellite data to determine how the warm ocean Kuroshio Current affects the vertical structure of clouds. Rainfall intensity around the middle troposphere (6 km in height) over the Kuroshio was
greater than that over surrounding areas. The drizzle clouds over the Kuroshio have a higher frequency of occurrence of geometrically thin (0.5–3 km) clouds and thicker (7–10 km) clouds compared to those around the Kuroshio. Moreover, the frequency of occurrence of precipitating clouds with a geometric thickness of 7 to 10 km increased over the Kuroshio. Stronger updrafts over the Kuroshio maintain large droplets higher in the upper part of the cloud layer, and the maximum radar reflectivity within a cloud layer in non-precipitating and drizzle clouds over the
Kuroshio is higher than that around the Kuroshio.
A. Yamauchi, K. Kawamoto, A. Manda, et al. (2018). "Assessing the impact of the Kuroshio Current on vertical cloud structure using CloudSat data". Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-7657-2018