Cloud vertical structure studied with synergetic measurements of Radiosonde, ceilometer and Ka-band radar in Munich

Clouds play an important role in the radiation budget of the Earth’s atmosphere. The radiative heating and/or cooling by cloud vertical sturcture including cloud top and base, number and thickness of cloud layers, and the vertical distribution of multi-layer clouds couple strongly with the atmospheric thermodynamics, general circulation, and the hydrological cycle. Unfortunately, however, inadequate understanding of cloud properties and their vertical distributions still leads to high uncertainties in global climate models. In this study, we present the vertical distributions of multi-layer clouds derived from synergetic measurements of radiosonde and collocated ceilometer and the miraMACS Ka-band cloud radar on the roof of the Meteorological Institute Munich. Balloon-borne radiosondes penetrate the cloud layers and thus provide in-situ measurements. The profiles of temperature, relative humidity and pressure with radiosonde are used to derive cloud layers by identifying saturated levels in the atmosphere. The ceilometer is very efficient in detecting clouds and can provide a reliable estimate of the height of cloud base. The miraMACS cloud radar operating continuously in a vertical pointing mode provide radar reflectivities by hydrometeors within the radar beam. The radar observations allow for the determination of cloud layers with high temporal and vertical resolutions. Doing these exercises to the measurements of an entire year in 2018, we are able to evaluate the cloud layer retrieval methods with different instruments and to derive the statistical properties of cloud vertical structure in Munich.