Biagioli et al. (2026) Spatial Patterns of Shallow Clouds: Challenging the Concept of Defined Regimes

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Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-04-20
• Authors: Giovanni Biagioli, Giulio Mandorli, Lilli Freischem, Alejandro Casallas, Adrian M. Tompkins
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl119921

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

The study utilizes the $L$-function to analyze the spatial organization of tropical shallow clouds in the western Atlantic, concluding that cloud organization exists as a continuum rather than as discrete archetypal regimes.

Objective

• To quantify the spatial organization of tropical shallow clouds across various scales and determine if they can be categorized into discrete regimes or if they follow a continuous distribution.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Western tropical Atlantic (mesoscale cloud organization).
• Temporal Scale: Not specified.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: $L$-function (based on point pattern theory), inter-cloud nearest-neighbor distance analysis, and fractal analysis.
• Data sources: Geostationary satellite imagery.

Main Results

• Archetypal cloud patterns exhibit distinct $L$-function "fingerprints," which allow for the identification of characteristic clustering and regularity scales.
• Analysis of a large number of scenes reveals that the $L$-function distribution lacks distinct modes, suggesting that cloud organization is a continuous spectrum rather than a set of discrete regimes.
• This finding is consistently supported by other organization indices, including fractal analysis and nearest-neighbor distances.

Contributions

• Challenges the existing paradigm of classifying tropical shallow clouds into four discrete archetypal regimes.
• Provides a quantitative methodology using point pattern theory to characterize cloud organization, offering new insights for the parameterization of mesoscale cloud organization in global climate models.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Biagioli2026Spatial,
  author = {Biagioli, Giovanni and Mandorli, Giulio and Freischem, Lilli and Casallas, Alejandro and Tompkins, Adrian M.},
  title = {Spatial Patterns of Shallow Clouds: Challenging the Concept of Defined Regimes},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl119921},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl119921}
}