Entering the Era of +30-Year Satellite Cloud Climatologies: A North American Case Study

Abstract

he emergence of satellite-based cloud records of climate length and quality hold tremendous potential for climate model development, climate monitoring, and studies on global water cycling and its subsequent energetics. This article examines the more than 30-yr Pathfinder Atmospheres?Extended (PATMOS-x) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) cloudiness record over North America and assesses its suitability as a climate-quality data record. A loss of ~4.2% total cloudiness is observed between 1982 and 2012 over a North American domain centered over the contiguous United States. While ENSO can explain some of the observed change, a weather state clustering analysis identifies shifts in weather patterns that result in loss of water cloud over the Great Lakes and cirrus over southern portions of the United States. The radiative properties of the shifting weather states are characterized, and the results suggest that extended cloud satellite records may prove useful tools for increasing knowledge of cloud feedbacks, a long-standing issue in the climate change community.