Long-term change in characteristics of cloud vertical structures in Padang from radiosonde observations

Abstract

The characteristics of clouds continue to change with climate change, including changes in cloud-base heigh (CBH), cloud tops (CT) and the number of layers of clouds. This work investigates cloud vertical structures in Padang using long-term observations of radiosondes (1988-2019). Height of CBH identified based on the relative humidity threshold. of 84% following the method proposed by several previous studies. The vertical distribution of cloud tops, cloud base has increased over time in all cloud layers, but cloud thickness has decreased. The most commonly observed cloud layer in Padang is one layer cloud (58.87%), followed by two layer cloud (31.12%). The cloud with more layer is also observed but the number is relatively small (10%).