SOLAR RADIATIVE-TRANSFER IN CLOUDS WITH VERTICAL INTERNAL INHOMOGENEITY

To investigate the photon transport in inhomogeneous clouds, a Monte Carlo cloud model with internal variation of optical properties is developed. The data for cloud vertical internal inhomogeneity are chosen from published observations. Parameterization of the solar radiative properties of clouds is used in the form of the liquid water content and the effective radius of cloud droplet. The Monte Carlo simulations show that for overcast stratocumulus clouds, the differences in reflectance between the vertical inhomogeneous clouds and their plane-parallel counterpart are very small (only about 1%). These differences can be enhanced up to 10% for large solar zenith angles, when the overcast clouds are separated into broken cloud fields. If the cloud coverage is large, the vertical inhomogeneity of clouds can cause about 7% increase in cloud absorption, which may help to explain the cloud absorption anomaly. Also, the parameterization of effective cloud amount for cloud absorption is discussed.