Characteristics of Shallow Convective Clouds over Inner Mongolia Grassland Derived from Satellite Observations

Understanding of shallow convective clouds (SCCs) is important for forecasting deep, convective thunderstorms and studying radiation balance and climate change. Because an SCC has very small horizontal and vertical lengths and a short lifetime, the ways to measure SCCs remain limited. In this paper, we use 2B-CLDCLASS-LIDAR and 2B-GEOPRO from CloudSat, CALIPSO, and MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) for 2009–2010 to study SCCs. The test case shows that this method is reasonable and feasible. The analysis shows that the occurrence frequency of SCCs above Inner Mongolia grassland has obvious seasonal variations and is greatest in summer and autumn. The horizontal distribution of its occurrence frequency shows a low trend in the northwest and high trend in the southeast, which is closely related to the altitude gradient. The average cloud base height of SCCs obviously differs between winter and summer, being highest in August and lowest in December. SCCs in different regions show that their cloud base heights trend releated with altitude.