An intercomparison case for the radiation codes used in the various climate models that participate in EUCLIPSE WP1 is being set up. The main objective is to quantify the intermodel spread in ToA albedo for typical marine stratocumulus. Also radiation codes that are used in LES models or as stand alone tools are more than welcome to participate. The case is based on observations of stratocumulus off the coast of Africa over the Southern Atlantic Ocean. The runs are not costly, since only a one-time step of the LES code and/or SCM version of a GCM is required and a limited set of output data is asked. We propose a range of cases with different Liquid Water Path (LWP), different options for the microphysics, and different vertical resolutions. For further detailed instructions, motivation and required output we refer to the radiation intercomparison webpage.

As of today the final versions of the CALIPSO-PARASOL observational analysis product are available at the IPSL website. The GCM Oriented Cloud Calipso Product (CALIPSO-GOCCP) is designed to evaluate GCM cloudiness. CALIPSO-GOCCP contains observational cloud diagnostics fully consistent with the ones simulated by the ensemble "GCM+ CALIPSO simulator" (COSP-CAPSIM) : same spatial resolution for the lidar profile before the cloud detection, and same cloud detection threshold. CALIPSO-GOCCP is derived from CALIPSO Level 1 NASA product (the Attenuated Bascatted Signal at 532nm). The second part, namely the PARASOL-1DIREFL is designed to evaluate GCM cloudiness. It is consistent with the directional reflectance simulated by the ensemble "GCM+PARASOL simulator" (COSP-CAPSIM). Read more ........

On request of the EU short informative films will be made of some EU projects. The EUCLIPSE project is one of these projects. On February 14th a representative of the EU together with a camera crew visited the site at Cabauw and the TU in Delft in order to shoot some footage. Unfortunately, as you can see in the pictures, the weather did not cooperate.
Last week the EUCLIPSE partner in Paris, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Institute Pierre Simon Laplace, was also visited for this purpose.
As soon as the movie is ready it will be available through this website.

Since 26th January 2011 the final version of the MODIS-simulator is publicly available here. A tool is presented that allows for a comparison of climate-model simulated cloud and aerosol fields with retrievals by MODIS and other spaceborne passive radiometers.
The tool considers three steps:
(i) the sampling of cloud-top quantities using the model's cloud overlap hypothesis,
(ii) the satellite instrument sensitivity by discarding clouds with little cloud fraction or optical depth, and
(iii) the diurnal sampling by taking into account the satellite overpass time for polar-orbiting satellites. The tool is easy to implement and easy to use, and has been tested widely.
Read more .....

The kick-off meeting of the EUCLIPSE project, which was postponed in April due to the eruption of the vulcano Eyjafjallajökull, has now taken place on the 27th and 28th of September 2010 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The meeting was attended by a group of interested scientists who listened to a large number of short presentations and updates of the work done so far in the Work Packages.
Read more .....

The kick-off meeting of the EUCLIPSE project which was planned on 14-15 April in Haarlem in the Netherlands is postponed. Due to the eruption of the vulcano Eyjafjallajökull, flight traffic was that much hampered it was not possible for most participants to reach the meeting venue. Read more .....

The EUCLIPSE, project officially launched on 1st of February 2010. Hiring of high-quality research staff is underway at the 13 partner institutes of EUCLIPSE and work has commenced. The project website is being built, the project flyer is being designed and the preparations for the first workshop in April have started. Soon there will be more news on the initial stages of the project.