Spatial Patterns of Shallow Clouds: Challenging the Concept of Defined Regimes

Journal article

Plain Language Summary: The representation of tropical shallow cloud systems is a major source of uncertainty in climate models. Shallow clouds have previously been observed to organize in a variety of patterns. Four distinct classes—fish, flowers, sugar, and gravel—were identified, each with differing spatial scales of cloud organization. Here we analyze high‐resolution geostationary visible and infrared satellite images using a function that can objectively assess organization of cloudy pixels across all spatial scales. We see that examples of the four “classical” patterns are clearly identifiable using this function, but that they do not show up as clearly preferred regimes, but rather as way‐markers in a smoothly evolving sea of cloud patterns. This means that representing these patterns in parameterization schemes might be challenging.

Authors: Biagioli, G; Mandorli, G; Freischem, LJ; Casallas, A; Tompkins, AM

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 8
• Article number: e2025GL119921
• Publication date: 2026-04-20
• Acceptance date: 2026-03-25
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl119921
• EISSN: 1944-8007
• ISSN: 0094-8276
• Language: English
• Keywords: mesoscale cloud organization; shallow convection; trade‐wind clouds