Correlation analysis of lidar derived optical parameters for investigations on thin cirrus features at a tropical station Gadanki(13.5ºN and 79.2ºE), India

9-19The optical characterization of thin cirrus clouds is very important to understand its radiative effects. The optical parameters of cirrus clouds namely extinction (), Optical depth () and Linear depolarization ratio (LDR), have been derived from lidar data, obtained from a ground based polarization lidar at a tropical station, Gadanki (13.5ºN and 79.2ºE), India. The range dependent Lidar ratio (LR) has been derived by using an in-house developed iterative method. The present study makes an effort to understand the correlation between different optical parameters, and to get an insight in to the structure, composition and stability of the topical cirrus clouds. The variation of LR values with LDR gives an idea about the nature of aerosol content present within the cloud. It has been observed that there is a negative correlation between LDR and LR with a second degree polynomial fit for thin cirrus cloud conditions. The correlation between ice water content (IWC) derived directly from extinction value and LDR has been found to be positive and it has been used to establish cloud phase accurately instead of from the LDR value itself. From the time series observation it has been also found that the extinction and hence the IWC increases due to the growth of cirrus particle

Optical properties of cirrus clouds in the tropical tropopause region during two contrasting seasons

155-166<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-bidi-font-family:="" mangal;mso-ansi-language:en-gb;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:="" hi"="" lang="EN-GB">Radiation budget of Earth’s atmospheric system is largely impacted by the presence of cirrus clouds. In order to quantify the effect of cirrus clouds, particularly in tropics, it is important to characterise its vertical structure and optical properties. The variation of the optical and microphysical properties along with the structure and dynamics of the cirrus during two contrasting seasons, the summer and the southwest monsoon over the period 2006 - 2010 were studied using the ground-based lidar measurements made at the tropical station, Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E), India. The related meteorological indicators derived from radiosonde data available with Wyoming Atmospheric Data Centre were analysed .The results were compared with the data obtained from the CALIOP on board the CALIPSO satellite. Both the observations show similar pattern of seasonal variation. In most of the cirrus clouds, the top height observed was 0.8 km above and below the tropopause and top height was maximum during monsoon season. The seasonal variation of optical depth showed that most of cirrus clouds were thin and the optical depth showed highest value during monsoon period.</span

Optical Properties of Cirrus Clouds in the Tropical Tropopause Region during two Contrasting Seasons

Radiation budget of Earth’s atmospheric system is largely impacted by the presence of cirrus clouds. In order to quantify the effect of cirrus clouds, it is important to characterise their vertical structure and optical properties. The variation of the optical and microphysical properties along with the structure and dynamics of the cirrus during two contrasting seasons, the summer and the south west monsoon were studied using ground based lidar measurements made at the tropical station, Gadanki (13.50 N, 79.20 E), India. The related meteorological indicators derived from radiosonde data available with Wyoming atmospheric data centre are analysed .The results are compared with the data obtained from CALIOP on board the CALIPSO satellite. Both the observations follow similar pattern of variation. Most of the cirrus clouds top heights are observed 0.8 km above and below the tropopause and have the maximum top height during monsoon seasons. The seasonal variation of optical depth shows that most of cirrus clouds observed was thin clouds and the optical depth shows highest value during monsoon period