High Spectral Resolution Infrared Closure Study Applied to TC4 Cloud Property Retrievals
Abstract
A NASA Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) mission was conducted to investigate the structure, properties and processes in the tropical Eastern Pacific. The mission was designed from the perspective of the A-train satellite measurements: to both validate and provide critical observations not available from the satellites. A-train observations were well represented by aircraft measurements collected from the NASA ER-2 instrument suite. For this study we include the Scanning High Resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS), the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS), and the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), which are akin to A-train instruments AIRS, MODIS, and Calipso, respectively. Cloud property retrievals obtained during the TC4 mission will be utilized to produce upwelling infrared radiance spectra using a radiative transfer model. These results will be compared to high spectral resolution infrared measurements acquired by the S-HIS (University of Wisconsin). A Line-by-Line Radiative Transfer Model (LBLRTM) has been combined with the Discrete Ordinate Radiate Transfer (DISORT) model to form a single application (LBLDIS) which can be used to calculate infrared atmospheric emission spectra in the presence of clouds or aerosol. Clear sky atmospheric state profiles, used as input to LBLDIS, will be determined using local radiosondes or National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Model data if measured profiles are unavailable. Cloud optical property input to LBLDIS (e.g., visible optical depth and bulk crystal effective radius) will be results that were retrieved from CPL (NASA GSFC) and MAS (NASA GSFC) measurements.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFM.A13C1366D
- Keywords:
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- 0321 Cloud/radiation interaction;
- 0360 Radiation: transmission and scattering