Cloud Vertical Profiles from CloudSat Data over the Eastern Tibetan Plateau during Summer

The spatial distribution of the vertical variation in cloud over the eastern Tibetan Plateau during summer(June to August) of 2006-2010 was studied using CloudSat data. The results showed that:(1) The cloud over the eastern Tibetan Plateau could develop in the stratosphere in summer, and existed as water cloud below 5km, mixed with liquid and ice crystals from 5 to 10km, and was ice cloud above 10km. However, due to the problem of the inversion algorithm of the cloud phase from CloudSat data, the cloud top of the water cloud and mixed cloud may have been lower, and the cloud base of the ice clouds higher, than was actually the case.(2) There were some spatial differences between the spatial distribution of the summer mean water vapor flux and the cloud water path. The latitudinal distribution of cloud water indicated that the cloud water was sufficient from 26.5°N to 30.5°N. The longitudinal distribution of cloud water showed that the cloud water to the east of 95°E was more abundant than to the west.(3) The cloud in the study area was mainly single-layer, especially over the eastern Tibet Plateau. The average thickness of the single-layer cloud was 4182 m, and the cloud top and cloud thickness descended in a fluctuating fashion from south to north, limited by the water vapor amount. The occurrence frequency of multilayer cloud was reduced obviously to the north of 27°N, which illustrated that powerful convection was more conducive to the development of multilayer cloud.