How Skilful Are Cloud Cover Products in Representing Observed Cloudiness in Québec?

In this study, we performed, for the first time, a detailed analysis of cloudiness in Québec using station based observations and evaluated the trustworthiness of various satellite and reanalysis based cloud cover products. We found only 12 stations with observational time series long enough for pro...

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Veröffentlicht in:Atmosphere-ocean Jg. 62; H. 5; S. 360 - 371
Hauptverfasser: Mahmood, Rashed, King, James, Music, Biljana, Côté, Hélène
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Ottawa Taylor & Francis 19.10.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Schlagworte:
Arctic climate change
Bias
Climate change
Climate models
Cloud cover
cloud cover products
cloud observations
Cloudiness
Divers
Long term changes
Mean square errors
Neptune
Regional climate models
Regional climates
Root-mean-square errors
Satellite observation
Satellites
Seasons
Trends
trends in cloudiness
Winter
ISSN:0705-5900, 1480-9214
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Zusammenfassung:In this study, we performed, for the first time, a detailed analysis of cloudiness in Québec using station based observations and evaluated the trustworthiness of various satellite and reanalysis based cloud cover products. We found only 12 stations with observational time series long enough for providing robust analysis due to various issues related to observing methods and recording of information during the 1990s. Our results showed that Québec can be fairly cloudy throughout the year with annual mean cloud cover fraction ranging between 0.5 and 0.7 with autumn being the cloudiest season at most station locations. We also found a significantly increasing trend in cloudiness in the winter season over Québec during 1982-2012 (∼2-6% per decade depending on the location). Among the cloudiness products evaluated in this study, a satellite based cloudiness product (i.e. based on AVHRR) performed best in representing the observed cloudiness over Québec including the wintertime increasing trend. Two reanalysis based cloudiness products (i.e. ERA5 and NARR) also performed well in representing the observed cloudiness indicated by high correlations, relatively lower mean biases and smaller root mean square errors. However, the reanalysis products did not capture well the observed seasonal trends. All products showed relatively larger biases in the winter season except JRA-25 reanalysis product. During the warmer months, however, JRA-25 showed largest biases followed by MERRA-2 reanalysis product. JRA-25 and MERRA-2 also had lower correlation for annual and winter means and highest root mean square errors for all seasons. Furthermore, based on two skill scores, we found that the ERA5, AVHRR and NARR performed relatively better than JRA-25 and MERRA-2. Based on these results we conclude that the satellite product and the two reanalysis products can be useful resources (as observational proxies) along with station based observations for understanding long term changes in cloudiness of this region and also potentially evaluating regional climate model simulations.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:0705-5900
1480-9214
DOI:10.1080/07055900.2024.2425859