Premium
Comparisons of satellites liquid water estimates to ECMWF and GMAO analyses, 20th century IPCC AR4 climate simulations, and GCM simulations
Author(s) -
Li JuiLin F.,
Waliser D.,
Woods C.,
Teixeira J.,
Bacmeister J.,
Chern J.,
Shen B.W.,
Tompkins A.,
Tao W.K.,
Köhler M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2008gl035427
Subject(s) - environmental science , gcm transcription factors , precipitation , general circulation model , liquid water path , climatology , satellite , atmospheric sciences , climate model , meteorology , climate change , geology , oceanography , physics , aerospace engineering , engineering
To assess the fidelity of general circulation models (GCMs) in simulating cloud liquid water, liquid water path (LWP) retrievals from several satellites with passive sensors and the vertically‐resolved liquid water content (LWC) from the CloudSat are used. Comparisons are made with ECMWF and MERRA analyses, GCM simulations utilized in the IPCC 4th Assessment, and three GCM simulations. There is considerable disagreement amongst the LWP estimates and amongst the modeled values. The LWP from GCMs are much larger than the observed estimates and the two analyses. The largest values in the CloudSat LWP occur over the boundary‐layer stratocumulus regions; this feature is not as evident in the analyses or models. Better agreement is found between the two analyses and CloudSat LWP when cases with surface precipitation are excluded. The upward vertical extent of LWC from the GCMs and analyses is greater than CloudSat estimates. The issues of representing LWC and precipitation consistently between satellite‐derived and model values are discussed.