The latitude-altitude distributions of radiative fluxes and heating rates are investigated by utilizing CloudSat satellite data over China during summer. The Tibetan Plateau causes the downward shortwave fluxes of the lower atmosphere over central China to be smaller than the fluxes over southern and northern China by generating more clouds. The existence of a larger quantity of clouds over central China reflects a greater amount of solar radiation back into space. The vertical gradients of upward shortwave radiative fluxes in the atmosphere below 8 km are greater than those above 8 km. The latitudinal-altitude distributions of downward longwave radiative fluxes show a slantwise decreasing trend from low latitudes to high latitudes that gradually weaken in the downward direction. The upward longwave radiative fluxes also weaken in the upward direction but with larger gradients. The maximum heating rates by solar radiation and cooling rates by longwave infrared radiation are located over 28 40°N at 7 8 km mean sea level (MSL), and they are larger than the rates in the northern and southern regions. The heating and cooling rates match well both vertically and geographically.
Two years of mid-latitude cirrus cloud macrophysical and optical properties over North China are described from Earth-orbiting Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization(CALIOP) satellite measurements. Global cloud climatological studies based on active remote sensing data sets benefit from more accurate resolution of vertical structure and more reliable detection of optically thin layers.The mean values for cirrus cases over North China are 0.19±0.18 for infrared emittance,0.41±0.68 for visible optical depth, 0.26±0.12 for integrated depolarization ratio,and 0.72±0.22 for integrated color ratio.When studied using reasonable assumptions for the relationship between extinction and ice crystal backscatter coefficients,our results show that most of the cirrus clouds profiled using the 0.532μm channel data stream correspond with an optical depth of less than 1.0.The dependence of cirrus cloud properties on cirrus cloud mid-cloud temperature and geometry thickness are generally similar to the results derived from the ground-based lidar, which are mainly impacted by the adiabatic process on the ice cloud content.However,the differences in macrophysical parameter variability indicate the limits of spaceborne-lidar and dissimilarities in regional climate variability and the nature and source of cloud nuclei in different geographical regions.
