Relationship between cloud vertical structures inferred from radiosonde humidity profiles and precipitation over Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract Knowledge of cloud vertical structure, including the presence of multiple cloud layers, is important for several climate-related applications such as for understanding the impact of clouds on Earth’s radiation budget. Moreover, the vertical distribution of latent heat release that affects global circulation and precipitation. The characteristics of cloud vertical structure may change as a consequence of climate change. However, study on cloud vertical structure in Indonesia is limited to case study based on short period observation. This study aims to analyse the vertical structure of clouds, such as cloud base height (CBH), the height of the cloud top (CT) and the number of cloud layers due to climate change in Indonesia, based on ∼ 30 years radiosonde observation. The relation between cloud vertical structures and precipitation was investigated. We used the radiosonde data from nine observation stations in Indonesia. On an average, it is observed that over Indonesia one-layer clouds is most frequently observed cloud, more than 60% of the time. This number is much larger than the fraction of single layer clouds over the globe which is about 58 % of the time. The cloud vertical structures in Indonesia vary from month to month. The cloud vertical structure during wet and dry season is different which indicate a strong relationship between cloud vertical structure and precipitation.