Peculiarities of Climatic Changes in Cloud Cover over the Russian Federation

E. I. Khlebnikova and I. A. Sall

Modern climatic changes in cloud cover over Russia are analyzed from standard ground-based meteorological observations in 1951–2000 and information on cloudiness obtained from the actinometrical observations in 1976–2000. In addition to studies of changes in total cloud amount, a special attention is paid to the distribution of basic forms of cloudiness with respect to their frequency. A spatial generalization of the results for large-scale regions (the European and Asian parts of Russia) allowed revealing dominant tendencies in cloud cover changes that are slightly related to seasons of year and reflect large-scale changes in cloud characteristics in the second half of the 20th century.