Cellular Statistical Models of Broken Cloud Fields. Part III: Markovian Properties

In the third part of the ‘‘Cellular Statistical Models of Broken Cloud Fields’’ series the cloud statistics formalism developed in the first two parts is interpreted in terms of the theory of Markov processes. The master matrix introduced in this study is a unifying generalization of both the cloud fraction probability distribution function (PDF) and the Markovian transition probability matrix. To illustrate the new concept, the master matrix is used for computation of the moments of the cloud fraction PDF—in particular, the variance—which until now has not been analytically derived in the framework of the authors’ previous work. This paper also serves as a bridge to the proposed future studies of the effects of sampling and averaging on satellite-based cloud masks.