A climatology of clouds in marine cold air outbreaks in both hemispheres

A climatology of clouds within marine cold air outbreaks, primarily using long-term satellite observations, is presented. Cloud properties between cold air outbreaks in different regions in both hemispheres are compared. In all regions marine cold air outbreak clouds tend to be low level with high cloud fraction and low-to-moderate optical thickness. Stronger cold air outbreaks have clouds that are optically thicker, but not geometrically thicker, than those in weaker cold air outbreaks. There is some evidence that clouds deepen and break up over the course of a cold air outbreak event. The top-of-the-atmosphere longwave cloud radiative effect in cold air outbreaks is small because the clouds have low tops. However, their surface longwave cloud radiative effect is considerably larger. The rarity of cold air outbreaks in summer limits their shortwave cloud radiative effect. They do not contribute substantially to global shortwave cloud radiative effect and are, therefore, unlikely to be a major source of shortwave cloud radiative effect errors in climate models.