Computation of vertical profiles of longwave radiative cooling over the equatorial Pacific

Abstract

An important quantity whose magnitude has not been thoroughly examined is the vertical distribution of heating in the Tropics. The details of the vertical distribution of heating have a significant impact on a number of phenomena, including the 30-60 day oscillation, sometimes known as the intraseasonal oscillation. An important component of the apparent heat budget is the longwave radiative cooling, which in this paper is found by using the ECMWF/WCRP/TOGA Archive II and ISCCP C1 datasets, together with a well-established parameterization scheme. A method is developed that can be used to estimate the vertical structure of cloud amounts based on top-of-atmosphere cloud observations, and the results are used with a wide-band long-wave parameterization to produce longwave and cooling rates over the tropical Pacific Ocean. -from Authors