Articles | Volume 10, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2547-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2547-2017
Model evaluation paper
 | 
06 Jul 2017
Model evaluation paper |  | 06 Jul 2017

A multi-diagnostic approach to cloud evaluation

Keith D. Williams and Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo

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The simulation of cloud is problematic for general circulation models. As clouds come in differing types, areal coverage, altitude and reflectivity, it is possible for a model to appear to perform well against a particular observational dataset through a compensation of errors. Here we evaluate a model's cloud simulation against a range of observational datasets, globally and across weather–climate timescales, in order to provide a comprehensive assessment.