Cloud and surface properties derived from satellite data over ARM sites
Authors
Patrick Minnis — NASA - Langley Research Center
Rabindra Palikonda — Science Systems and Applications. Inc./NASA - LRC
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Mandana Khaiyer — Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI)
J Kirk Ayers — NASA - Langley Research Cntr/Science Systems and Application
Benjamin Raymond Scarino — Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
Chris Yost — Texas A&M University
Category
Cloud Properties
Description
The NASA Langley Clouds and Radiation Group provides cloud and radiation properties over the ARM sites to characterize the large-scale cloud fields and top-of-atmosphere radiation over both long and short-term study areas. As the ARM surface and airborne data sets become available, it becomes possible to better characterize the uncertainties in the satellite retrievals and provide better confidence in their use for modeling initiation and validation and climatological assessment. These uncertainties are estimated by comparison of the ARM surface-based measurements with the satellite retrievals.This study provides an updated overview of the available satellite-based products over the various domains. It also provides some new comparisons of the surface and satellite retrievals of cloud amount, optical depth, phase, particle size, height, thickness, and water path. Both the latest surface and satellite retrievals are employed as new calibrations and revised algorithms have become available. Particularly, we focus on the updated cloud property data from the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site by McFarlane and Shi (2012), which indicate that both the cloud optical depths from the multifilter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR) and the microwave radiometer (MWR) liquid water path (LWP) data have been overestimated in the past by about 10%. Comparisons of both cloud and surface skin temperature data from surface and satellite data over several sites will be presented.