Low Cloud Type over the Ocean from Surface Observations. Part I: Relationship to Surface Meteorology and the Vertical Distribution of Temperature and Moisture

Surface cloud observations and coincident surface meteorological observations and soundings from five ocean weather stations are used to establish representative relationships between low cloud type and marine boundary layer (MBL) properties for the subtropics and midlatitudes by compositing soundings and meteorological observations for which the same low cloud type was observed. Physically consistent relationships are found to exist between low cloud type, MBL structure, and surface meteorology at substantially different geographical locations and seasons. Relative MBL height and inferred decoupling between subcloud and cloud layers are increasingly greater for stratocumulus, cumulus-under-stratocumulus, and cumulus, respectively, at midlatitude locations as well as the eastern subtropical location during both summer and winter. At the midlatitude locations examined, cloudiness identified as fair-weather stratus often occurs in a deep, stratified cloud layer with little or no capping inversion. This strongly contrasts with cloudiness identified as stratocumulus, which typically occurs in a relatively well-mixed MBL under a strong capping inversion at both midlatitude and eastern subtropical locations. At the transition between subtropics and midlatitudes in the western North Pacific, cloudiness identified as fair-weather stratus occurs in a very shallow layer near the surface. Above this layer the associated profile of temperature and moisture is similar to that for cumulus at the same location, and neither of these cloud types is associated with a discernible MBL. Sky-obscuring fog and observations of no low cloudiness typically occur with surface-based inversions. These observed relationships can be used in future studies of cloudiness and cloudiness variability to infer processes and MBL structure where above-surface observations are lacking.