The Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment - ASTEX

Abstract

The Atlantic Stratocumulus Experiment (ASTEX) was conducted over the northeast Atlantic Ocean during June 1992 with substantial international collaboration. The main goal ofASTEX was to study the climatologically important transition between solid stratocumulus and subtropical trade cumulus cloud regimes using island, aircraft, ship, and satellite measurements. Typically, the boundary layer was found to support cumulus clouds detraining into a patchy and fairly thin upper-stratocumulus layer. The substantial microphysical variability between clean marine and polluted continental air masses observed during ASTEX affected both drizzle and cloud properties. -from Authors