Welch R.M., Cox S.K., Davis J.M. Solar radiation and clouds

Boston: American Meteorological Society, 1980. — 107 pp.The research reported in this monograph has evolved in a very pragmatic fashion. It represents an attempt to explore the extreme values as well as the more probable values of the radiative characteristics of water and ice clouds in the solar wavelengths. Since the mid 1960's a number of observations of shortwave absorption in clouds have been reported which appear to be larger than classical theory can explain. One of the authors of this monograph (SKC) has been closely associated with the collection of a number of these observations of solar fractional absorption. While we freely admit that the observations do contain some error on occasion, the differences between the observations and theoretical estimates are so large that they may not be dismissed as observational error alone; therefore we have explored several plausible explanations for what have heretofore been labeled excessive values of solar absorption.List of Figures.
List of Tables.The Effect of Monomodal Drop Size Distributions, Cloud Top Heights, Cloud Thickness and Vertical Water Vapor Profiles upon Cloud Heating Rates and the Cloud Radiation Field.
The Effect of Cloud Bimodal Drop Size Distributions upon the Radiative Characteristics of Clouds.
The Solar Radiative Properties of Ice Clouds.
The Effect of Cloud Geometry upon the Radiative Characteristics of Finite Clouds.
The Effect of Vertical and Horizontal Cloud Microstructure Inhomogeneities upon the RadiativeSubject index.