Observations of Noctilucent Clouds by Odin/OSIRIS and AIM/CIPS

Polar Mesospheric Clouds (NLC) are analyzed in terms of scattered sunlight observed by the OSIRIS optical spectrograph onboard Odin and the CIPS Cloud Imager onboard AIM. While OSIRIS applies limb geometry and spectral analysis, CIPS applies downward observations and phase function analysis. This paper compares the retrieval of NLC properties by both approaches. In order to co-analyze the datasets, a detailed forward model is used to simulate optical cloud signatures for arbitrary NLC particle populations. Combined climatologies are presented in terms of NLC occurrence, cloud structure, particle sizes and ice water content. This study has been performed within a Particle Size Working Group that coordinates ongoing satellite, ground-based and model efforts.