Multifractal characterization of liquid water in clouds

The variations of atmospheric quantities are often represented by highly fl uctuating time series. Therefore, specially designed analysis tools are nee ded to study signals which vary on many scales. Recently, Davis et al. [J. Geophys. Res. 99, 8055 (1994)] proposed a new technique for analysis of com plex nonlinear geophysical processes observed over large time or space scal es The approach is aimed at investigating nonstationarity and intermittency as two complementary features of the geophysical fields. We apply the mult ifractal analysis to a liquid water path time series obtained via ground-ba sed remote sensing measurements. On the (H-1.C-1) plane we compare the resu lts from this study with the results of direct measurements of liquid water content during the same field program and those reported by other authors. [S1063-651X(99)11803-8].