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"Cloud-mode" optical depth observations—example of adaption of ARM to AERONET

 
Poster PDF

Authors

Warren J. Wiscombe — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Alexander Marshak — NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Brent Holben — NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Yuri Knyazikhin — Boston University
J.-Y. Christine Chiu — Colorado State University
C. Stefani Huang — NASA - GSFC/Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
David Giles — NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Ilya Slutsker — NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center/Sigma Space Corp.

Category

Cloud Properties

Description

Cloud optical depth is one of the most poorly observed climate variables. A dramatic increase in the number and accuracy of cloud optical depth observations is crucial both for validation and improvement of climate model predictions. The ARM sunphotometer, identical to those used in AERONET, was originally designed to measure aerosol properties. When clouds block the sun, the radiometer is placed into sleep mode. We propose to use some of this idle time to monitor clouds and have dubbed this new operational mode “cloud-mode”. We will compare cloud-mode optical depth retrievals with those from the MODIS satellite instrument and from ARM ground-based shortwave flux, microwave, and cloud radar measurements. We will also show how cloud-mode is being adapted to work within AERONET, which will expand observations of cloud optical properties to the global scale.