Our aim is to provide an observational reference for the evaluation of the surface and boundary layer parameterizations used in large-scale models using the remarkable long-term Canadian Prairie hourly dataset. First we use shortwave and longwave data from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) station at Bratt’s Lake, Saskatchewan, and clear sky radiative fluxes from ERA-Interim, to sho...

Estimating the impact of radiation transport through cloud sides on the global energy budget is hampered by the lack of a fast radiation scheme suitable for use in global atmospheric models that can represent these effects in both the shortwave and longwave. This two-part paper describes the development of such a scheme, which we refer to as the Speedy Algorithm for Radiative Transfer through C...

This study investigates the extent to which assimilating high-resolution remotely sensed cloud cover into the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) provides an improved regional diagnosis of downward shortand longwave surface radiation fluxes and precipitation. An automatic procedure was developed to derive highresolution (4 km 3 4 km) fields of fractional cloud cover from visible band Ge...

The radiative constraints on the partitioning of the surface energy budget and, hence, on the strength of the hydrological cycle are analyzed in an idealized one-dimensional radiative–convective equilibrium model formulated in terms of the energy budgets at the top of the atmosphere, the subcloud layer, and the free atmosphere, which enables it to predict both surface relative humidity and the ...

We examine 800-year time series of internally generated variability in both a coupled ocean-atmosphere model where water vapor anomalies are not allowed to interact with longwave radiation and one where they are. The ENSO-like phenomenon in the experiment without water vapor feedback is drastically suppressed both in amplitude and geographic extent relative to the experiment with water vapor fe...

A key disagreement exists between global climate model (GCM) simulations and satellite observations of the decadal variability in the tropical-mean radiation budget. Measurements from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) over the period 1984–2001 indicate a trend of increasing longwave emission and decreasing shortwave reflection that no GCM can currently reproduce. Motivated by these r...

A parameterization for the scattering of thermal infrared (longwave) radiation by clouds has been developed based on discrete-ordinate multiple-scattering calculations. The effect of backscattering is folded into the emission of an atmospheric layer and the absorption between levels by scaling the cloud optical thickness. The scaling is a function of the single-scattering albedo and asymmetry f...

Using two versions of the GFDL coupled ocean-atmosphere model, one where water vapor anomalies are allowed to affect the longwave radiation calculation and one where they are not, we examine the role of water vapor feedback in internal precipitation variability and greenhouse-gas-forced intensification of the hydrologic cycle. Without external forcing, the experiment with water vapor feedback p...