Vol. 9, issue 10, article # 1

Abstract:

Mathematical simulation is used to study the horizontal fluxes of solar radiation in stratocumulus clouds. Fractal cloud model with 1-D lognormal distribution and power-law spectrum is used, which correctly accounts for the distribution of liquid water in such clouds. It is shown that the radiative horizontal transfer, being zero in the plane-parallel model, is comparable (in the order of magnitude) with the other terms in the radiative energy balance equation. The horizontal transfer is responsible for non-unique dependence between the optical depth and the radiative properties of sampling volume (pixel). Slope β of the energy spectrum (or fractal dimension) of optical depth is one of the fundamental parameters governing the horizontal radiative transfer: as β increases, the horizontal transfer decreases. The 1-D distribution of horizontal transfer is well fitted by the Gaussian distribution with zero mean.