Title - On the linkages between cloud vertical structure and large-scale climate

Abstract
This is a series of studies that explores the linkages between the large-scale
meteorology and the vertical structure of cloud incidence using the CloudSat data.

In the first part, I will talk about the signature of the stratospheric Brewer-Dobson
circulation (BDC) in tropospheric cloudiness. During the Northern Hemisphere winter,
periods of enhanced stratospheric wave driving are associated with increased cloud
incidence in the tropical tropopause transition layer (TTL) juxtaposed against decreased
cloud incidence in the Arctic troposphere. The results are consistent with the physical
linkages between (1) the BDC and near-tropopause temperature and (2) near-tropopause
temperature and upper tropospheric cloud incidence. The key finding of the work is that
changes in the stratospheric circulation not only influence cloud amounts in the
troposphere but also that they do so in a coupled manner that links climate variability
in the Arctic and upper tropical troposphere. The results provide a pathway through which
stratospheric processes influence tropospheric climate that is in addition to
stratosphere/troposphere dynamical coupling.

In the second part, I will talk about the linkages between cloud vertical structure and
various large scale meteorological parameters. The work is novel in several important
ways: 1) it provides a systematic survey of the linkages between cloud incidence and the
meteorology at all levels of the troposphere throughout all areas of the global ocean; 2)
it provides quantitative estimates of the linkages on both climatological-mean and
month-to-month timescales; and 3) it explores the signatures in cloud incidence of
meteorological parameters not widely considered in previous work, including tropopause
temperatures, upper tropospheric stability, and storm track activity. The results provide
a baseline for evaluating physical parametrizations of clouds in GCMs, and a reference
for interpreting the signature of large-scale atmospheric phenomena in cloud vertical
structure.