Direct Aerosol Radiative Forcing from Combined A-Train Observations - Preliminary Comparisons with AeroCom Models and Pathways to Observationally Based All-sky Estimates

We describe a technique for combining CALIOP aerosol backscatter, MODIS spectral AOD (aerosol optical depth), and OMI AAOD (absorption aerosol optical depth) retrievals for the purpose of estimating full spectral sets of aerosol radiative properties, and ultimately for calculating the 3-D distribution of direct aerosol radiative forcing. We present results using one year of data collected in 2007 and show comparisons of the aerosol radiative property estimates to collocated AERONET retrievals. Use of the recently released MODIS Collection 6 data for aerosol optical depths derived with the dark target and deep blue algorithms has extended the coverage of the multi-sensor estimates towards higher latitudes. Initial calculations of seasonal clear-sky aerosol radiative forcing based on our multi-sensor aerosol retrievals compare well with over-ocean and top of the atmosphere IPCC-2007 model-based results, and with more recent assessments in the "Climate Change Science Program Report: Atmospheric Aerosol Properties and Climate Impacts" (2009). For the first time, we present comparisons of our multi-sensor aerosol direct radiative forcing estimates to values derived from a subset of models that participated in the latest AeroCom initiative. We discuss the major challenges that exist in extending our clear-sky results to all-sky conditions. On the basis of comparisons to suborbital measurements, we present some of the limitations of the MODIS and CALIOP retrievals in the presence of adjacent or underlying clouds. Strategies for meeting these challenges are discussed.