Abstract :
The cloud amounts and liquid and ice water paths as a function of height in five Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) II models have been compared to International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) d2 observations. The model layer data have been transformed to the ISCCP low, mid and height cloud amount and vertically integrated water values. In addition a simple radiative transfer model has been used to transform both model output and ISCCP cloud amount and water contents into top of atmosphere albedos for the low, mid and high cloud fractions. Overall, most models represent moderately well the spatial, seasonal and interannual variability of total cloud albedo, which is largely a function of the total cloud amount. The models also tend to predict moderately well the spatial, seasonal, and interannual variability of cloud fraction, but fail to display the observed spatial, and especially, seasonal and interannual variability in cloud water path. In particular nearly all models have mid and low cloud water path variabilities, which are much larger than those observed in the ISCCP observations. This increased cloud water path variability seems to compensate partially for smaller underestimates of cloud fraction variability in most models. Furthermore, variations in cloud amount and cloud water path are much more often negatively correlated in models than in the observations. A simple estimate of the influence of cloud overlap suggests that monthly mean model cloud layers are less stacked in the vertical in models than in an observational estimate based upon a combination of satellite and ground-based observations.
