Evaluation of Cloud Physical Properties of ECMWF Analysis and Re-Analysis (ERA) against CERES Tropical Deep Convective Cloud Object Observations

This study presents an approach that converts the vertical profiles of grid-averaged cloud properties from large-scale models to probability density functions (pdfs) of subgrid-cell cloud physical properties measured at satellite footprints. Cloud physical and radiative properties, rather than just cloud and precipitation occurrences, of assimilated cloud systems by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational analysis (EOA) and 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) are validated against those obtained from Earth Observing System satellite cloud object data for the January–August 1998 and March 2000 periods. These properties include the ice water path (IWP), cloud-top height and temperature, cloud optical depth, and solar and infrared radiative fluxes. Each cloud object, a contiguous region with similar cloud physical properties, is temporally and spatially matched with EOA and ERA-40 data. Results indicate that most pdfs of EOA and ERA-40 cloud physical and radiative properties agree with those of satellite observations of the tropical deep convective cloud object type for the January–August 1998 period. There are, however, significant discrepancies in selected ranges of the cloud property pdfs such as the upper range of EOA cloud-top height. A major discrepancy is that the dependence of the pdfs on the cloud object size for both EOA and ERA-40 is not as strong as in the observations. Modifications to the cloud parameterization in ECMWF that occurred in October 1999 eliminate the clouds near the tropopause but shift power of the pdf to lower cloud-top heights and greatly reduce the ranges of IWP and cloud optical depth pdfs. These features persist in ERA-40 due to the use of the same cloud parameterizations. The less sophisticated data assimilation technique and the lack of snow water content information in ERA-40, not the larger horizontal grid spacing, are also responsible for the disagreements with observed pdfs of cloud physical properties, although the detection rates of cloud object occurrence are improved for small-size categories. A possible improvement to the convective parameterization is to introduce a stronger dependence of updraft penetration heights on grid-cell dynamics.