"Three-Dimensional Cloud Properties and Climate"
The interaction of clouds with solar and
terrestrial radiation is one of the most important topics of climate
research. Because of the complexity of clouds, only full
three-dimensional (3D) treatment of this interaction can provide
answers to many climate and remote sensing problems. This has led
to worldwide development of various 3D radiative transfer (RT) codes,
documented in the international "Intercomparison of 3 Dimensional
Radiation Codes" (I3RC) (See http://i3rc.gsfc.nasa.gov/). We will
address several related questions: How do the physical and
radiative properties of clouds depend on resolution? How do cloud
scaling or fractal properties impact Earth's climate, or does it
matter? How might cloud scaling properties help improve the
measurement and modeling of clouds? What breakthroughs
might be expected in cloud research in the next decade?