Coincident occurrences of tropical individual cirrus clouds and deep convective systems derived from TRMM observations

Satellite measurements of cloud properties and atmospheric radiation were used to investigate the effect of spatial and temporal scales on the coincident occurrences of tropical individual cirrus clouds (ICCs) and deep convective systems (DCSs). There is little or even negative correlation between instantaneous occurrences of ICC and DCS in small areas. When spatial and temporal domains are increased, ICCs become more dependent on DCSs due to the origination of many ICCs from DCSs and moisture supply from the DCS in the upper troposphere for the ICCs to grow, resulting in significant positive correlation between the two types of clouds. The estimated radiative feedback due to the change in tropical high cloud area coverage with sea surface temperature appears small and about -0.14 Wm-2K-1, which would not cancel out the estimated anthropogenic forcing of doubled atmospheric CO2.