Boris Barja

Camagüey Lidar Station, Meteorological Center of Camagüey, Cuba.

Recently, the sub – tropical cirrus clouds have called the attention in the international community. Cirrus have an important contribution in the radiative forcing of the earth atmosphere system. Also they play an important role in the dehidratation process taking place in the high troposphere and contributing to the presence the water vapour in the low stratosphere. Also, these clouds could serve as the surfaces of reaction contribute to the distribution of different gaseous species.

At Camagüey Lidar Station we have been conducting investigations in that sense. We have made several measurements of the cirrus geometrical characteristics such as base and top height. Average values for the base and top are 10.72 and 13.78 km respectively. These types of clouds show dependence in its occurrence frequency with the seasons. The optical depth is in general representative of the subvisual cirrus clouds with 46 % of lidar cirrus clouds measurements below of the 0.03 optical depth, value defined as the limit for this cloud.

Now we are engaged in the climatological study of the observation frequency of cirrus clouds using surface stations report’s of Camagüey meteorological station. We plan to implement future campaigns of lidar cirrus measurements, in dependence of the cirrus behaviour in the course of the year.