Datasets and First Results from the Macquarie Island Cloud and Radiation Experiment (MICRE)

Poster PDF

Description

Clouds over the Southern Ocean are poorly represented in present day reanalysis products and global climate model simulations. Errors in top-of-atmosphere broadband radiative fluxes in this region are among the largest globally, with large implications for modelling both regional and global scale climate responses. Model TOA radiative errors are due largely to errors in the model representation of clouds and aerosols. However, our knowledge of cloud and aerosol properties over the Southern Ocean relies heavily on satellite datasets; and uncertainty in satellite retrievals of cloud and aerosol properties, as well as estimates of surface shortwave and longwave fluxes based on these properties, are large. In response to the need for additional measurements of surface radiative fluxes, as well as cloud and aerosol properties over the Southern Ocean, ARM has deployed a variety of ground-instrumentation to Macquarie Island as part of the Macquarie Island Cloud and Radiation Experiment (MICRE). MICRE began in March 2016 and will end in March of 2018. Macquarie Island is located at 54° S, 159° E and has a small permanently manned research station. The research station is operated by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) and manned year-round, in part by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). This experiment is being conducted in coordination with AAD and BoM, with much thanks going to Simon Alexander and Alain Protat as co-science leads. In this poster, an overview of MICRE datasets will be provided along with some early results, including comparisons with satellite retrievals of radiative fluxes and precipitation properties.