Cloud-Top Properties of Growing Cumulus prior to Convective Initiation as Measured by Meteosat Second Generation. Part II: Use of Visible Reflectance

This study is a companion research effort to "Part I," which emphasized use of infrared data for understanding various aspects of growing convective clouds in the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite's Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) imagery. Reflectance and derived brightness variability (BV) fields from MSG SEVIRI are used here to understand relationships between cloud-top signatures and physical processes for growing cumulus clouds prior to known convective initiation (CI) events, or the first occurrence of a ≥35-dBZecho from a new convective cloud. This study uses daytime SEVIRI visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) reflectances from 0.6 to 3.9μm (3-km sampling distance), as well as high-resolution visible (1-km sampling distance) fields. Data from 123 CI events observed during the 2007 Convection and Orographically Induced Precipitation Study (COPS) field experiment conducted over southern Germany and northeastern France are processed, per convective cell, so to meet this study's objectives. These data are those used in Part I. A total of 27 VIS–NIR and BV "interest fields" are initially assessed for growing cumulus clouds, with correlation and principal component analyses used to highlight the fields that contain the most unique information for describing principally cloud-top glaciation, as well as the presence of vigorous updrafts. Time changes in 1.6- and 3.9-μm reflectances, as well as BV in advance of CI, are shown to contain the most unique information related to the formation and increase in size of ice hydrometeors. Several methods are proposed on how results from this analysis may be used to monitor growing convective clouds per MSG pixel or per cumulus cloud "object" over 1-h time frames.