What's in a monthly mean?
This site displays full-resolution
time-height GCM outputs, oriented toward clouds & cloud
radiative forcing, at several columns.
Plots for every month at every site can be
selected by clicking
on a background 'index' scatterplot of longitude vs. monthly-mean 500mb
vertical velocity
(omega, vertical axis), with color coding according to
top-of-atmosphere (TOA)
cloud radiative forcing.
The idea is that descending columns tend to have low cloud
and hence negative TOA CRF. It's noisy of course!
Clickable Longitude vs. monthly-mean Omega
diagrams of NCAR CAM column outputs
Clickable Longitude vs. monthly-mean Omega
diagrams of GFDL AM2 column outputs
The
pop-up plots for each site-month look like the following:
 |
TOP: TOA CRF- SW and LW components
SECOND
ROW: time-height section of RH and cloud fraction
THIRD
ROW: omega (color) and condensed water (overlay)
FOURTH ROW:
some statistics plots
|
|
|
The plots should be self explanatory, if a bit detailed.
Once you understand the plot format (from a larger PNG figure)
the smaller JPEG images are fairly informative at a glance.
Raw data, and simpler site-month quick-look plots, are available
at the Centers:
GFDL's AM2 Single
Column Output
NCAR's CAM3
Single Column Output
This is a part of the Climate Process Team (CPT) on
Low-Latitude Cloud Feedbacks on Climate Sensitivity.
See that site for more background information.
This material is based upon work supported by the National
Science Foundation under Grant No. 0555796. Any opinions, findings and
conclusions or
recomendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science
Foundation (NSF).
Comments to: Brian
Mapes (bmapes@rsmas.miami.edu)