Minimizing heterogeneity of VOS observations for improving estimates of short-wave radiation over the oceans

The paper describes the development of climatologies of short-wave radiation over the ocean using visually observed cloud cover from the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS). For producing climatology of short-wave radiation, we applied bulk parameterization (known as SAIL/IOARAS). For a proper computation of short-wave radiation values special effort was taken to reduce sampling errors in cloud cover from ICOADS. Specifically, we consider the uncertainties associated with temporal inhomogeneity of observations and potentially implying biases in short-wave radiation estimates related to the astronomy factors critical for short-wave radiation. For this purpose, we propose simple and effective algorithms.