. A new perspective on shallow cumulus cloud radiative effect utilizing surface observations and high resolution simulations

Abstract
The Earth-atmosphere system is primarily driven by solar energy absorbed at the surface. The amount of energy that reaches the surface strongly depends on the presence of clouds. Shallow cumulus clouds are common across continents and oceans alike, but their small spatial scale and rapid temporal evolution present a challenge to understand how they modulate surface energy. New routine high-resolution simulations alongside observations at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) site provide an opportunity to investigate shallow cumulus radiative effects in great detail. This poster reports on two key findings. First, it demonstrates how the diurnal evolution of simulated shallow cumulus manifests in relationships between cloud field properties and surface solar energy, and reveals the extent to which these relationships can be detected in observations. Second, it presents observed distributions of surface solar irradiance, and outlines the processes required in order to capture the characteristics of these distributions in simulations. In particular, the roles of 3D radiative effects and sampling density are highlighted. The improved understanding that has emerged from this work is providing valuable insight for evaluating state-of-the-art weather prediction models, and will have important implications for assessing solar renewable energy potential in the future.