Long-Term Retrievals of Cloud Type and Fair-Weather Shallow Cumulus Events at the ARM SGP Site

A long-term climatology of classified cloud types has been generated for 13 years (1997–2009) over the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) site for seven cloud categories: low clouds, congestus, deep convection, altocumulus, altostratus, cirrostratus/anvil, and cirrus. The classification was based on the cloud macrophysical quantities of cloud top, cloud base, and physical thickness of cloud layers, as measured by...