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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2012

RACORO Extended-Term Aircraft Observations of Boundary-Layer Clouds

Small boundary-layer clouds are ubiquitous over many parts of the globe and strongly influence the Earths radiative energy balance. However, our understanding of these clouds is insufficient to solve pressing scientific problems. For example, cloud feedback represents the largest uncertainty amongst all climate feedbacks in general circulation models (GCM). Several issues complicate understanding boundary-layer clouds and simulating them in GCMs. The high spatial variability of boundary-layer clouds poses an enormous computational challenge, since their horizontal dimensions and internal variability occur at spatial scales much finer than the computational grids used in GCMs. Aerosol-cloud interactions further complicate boundary-layer cloud measurement and simulation. Additionally, aerosols influence processes such as precipitation and cloud lifetime. An added complication is that at small scales (order meters to 10s of meters) distinguishing cloud from aerosol is increasingly difficult, due to the effects of aerosol humidification, cloud fragments and photon scattering between clouds.

boundary layer↗
NASA NTRS1993

The embedded young stars in the Taurus-Auriga molecular cloud. II - Models for scattered light images

We describe NIR imaging observations of embedded young stars in the Taurus-Auriga molecular cloud. We find a large range in J-K and H-K colors for these class I sources. The bluest objects have colors similar to the reddest T Tauri stars in the cloud; redder objects lie slightly above the reddening line for standard ISM dust and have apparent K extinctions of up to 5 mag. Most of these sources also show extended NIR emission on scales of 10-20 arcsec which corresponds to linear sizes of 1500-3000 AU. The NIR colors and nebular morphologies for this sample and the magnitude of linear polarization in several sources suggest scattered light produces most of the NIR emission in these objects. We present modeling results that suggest mass infall rates that agree with predictions for cold clouds and are generally consistent with rates estimated from radiative equilibrium models. For reasonable dust grain parameters, the range of colors and extinctions require flattened density distributions with polar cavities evacuated by bipolar outflows. These results support the idea that infall and outflow occur simultaneously in deeply embedded bipolar outflow sources. The data also indicate fairly large centrifugal radii and large inclinations to the rotational axis for a typical source.

Kenyon, Scott J.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Properties of Backscattered Ultraviolet Reflectances in Cloudy Atmosphere

We use a Plane-Parallel Cloud (PPC) model to illustrate how Mie scattering from cloud particles interacts with Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere and produces a complex wavelength dependence in the top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) reflectances measured by satellite instruments that operate in the ultraviolet (UV) part of the spectrum. Comparisons of the PPC model-derived spectral dependence of reflectances with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) measurements show surprisingly good agreement over a wide range of observational conditions. The PPC model results also are compared with the results of two other cloud models: Lambert Equivalent Reflectivity (LER) and Modified Lambert Equivalent Reflectivity (MLER) that have been used to analyze satellite data in the UV. These models assume that clouds are opaque Lambertian reflectors rather than Mie scattering particles. Although one of these models (MLER) agrees reasonably well with the data, the results from this model appear somewhat unphysical and may not be suitable for interpreting satellite data if one desires high accuracy. We also use the PPC model to illustrate how clouds can perturb tropospheric O3 absorption in complex ways that cannot be explained by models that treat them as reflecting surfaces rather than as volume scatterers.

Ahmad, Z.↗
NASA NTRS1986

The single scattering phase functions of Jupiter's clouds

The determination of the single scattering phase functions of Jupiter's clouds and a thin upper haze by Tomasko et al. was refined and extended to seven latitudes in blue and red light. The phase function is well-constrained by the Pioneer 10 and 11 photometric data sets. Multiple scattering models were computed to match the limb darkening at each latitude at up to 15 phase angles from 12 deg to 151 deg. Ground-based observations were used for absolute calibration and to extend the data to lower phase angles. The phase functions were parameterized using the double Henyey-Greenstein function. The three Henyey-Greenstein parameters and the single scattering albedo were determined using a non-linear least squares method for the haze and the clouds below. The phase functions derived for the northen zone and belt are remarkably similar to the phase functions of the corresponding regions in the south, with most of the differences in brightness of the northern and southern features resulting from minor differences in single scattering albedo. Analysis of the Equatorial Region is complicated by the presence of numerous small features, but the phase function required is generally similar to that seen in the more homogeneous regions. Details of the phase functions of the haze and clouds are presented, and the differences between the cloud phase functions at low and high latitudes in red and blue light are discussed.

Doose, L. R.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Radiative Transfer Through Clouds and Its Applications in Support of the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) Mission

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which contain enough ice to raise sea level by about 7 and 60 m, respectively, are losing mass at an increasing rate. To acquire continuous information of the cryosphere, after the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) (2003-2010), NASA is actively planning for the ICESat-2 mission. Both ICESat and ICESat-2 are space-borne lidar altimetry systems. The systems measure the time of flight of the arriving photons that are reflected by the surface to deduce the elevation of the underlying terrain. As one of NASA's top priority missions, ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch in 2016. One of the major science goals of ICESat-2 is to quantify the ice sheet mass balance to determine its contributions to the sea level change and its impacts on ocean circulation (Abdalati et al. 2010). Compared to ICESat, which operates at 40 Hz and records the reflected laser energy as a waveform, the significantly improved ICESat-2 lidar employs a 532 nm micro-pulse photon counting system that operates at a high frequency of 10kHz with single photon detectability (Yang et al. 2012). To achieve its science goals, ICESat-2 requires the ability of detecting the elevation change with an accuracy of 0.2 cm/year over the entire ice sheet. Since every photon emitted by the lidar system will travel through the atmosphere, clouds can certainly affect the flight time of the arriving photons. Forward scattering by cloud particles increases the photon path length, thus resulting in biases in ice sheet elevation measurements known as atmospheric path delay (Duta et al. 2001, Yang et al. 2010, 2011). To ensure the accuracy of ICESat-2 surface elevation measurements, it is critical to understand how clouds would affect the travel time of arriving photons. In this talk, we will first present a framework that simulates the behavior of a space-borne 532 mn micro-pulse photon counting lidar in cloudy and clear atmospheres. To investigate the process of laser propagation through clouds, a 3-D Monte Carlo radiative transfer model is used to simulate the photon path distribution and the Poisson distribution is adopted for the number of photon returns. Since the photon counting system only registers the time of the first arriving photon within the detector "dead time", the retrieved average surface elevation tends to bias towards higher values. This is known as the first photon bias. With the scenarios simulated here, the first photon bias for clear sky is about 6.5 cm. Clouds affect surface altimetry in two ways: (1) cloud attenuation lowers the average number of arriving photons and hence reduces the first photon bias; (2) cloud forward scattering increases the photon path length and makes the surface appear further away from the satellite. Compared to clear sky, the average surface elevation detected by the photon counting system for cloudy sky with optical depth 1.0 is 4.0 to 6.0 cm lower for the simulations conducted. The effect of surface roughness on the accuracy of elevation retrievals will also discussed.

Yang, Yuekui↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Evaluating Combined Lidar and Polarimeter Measurements of Cloud Top Parameters (Extinction, Scattering Cross Sections, and Droplet Number Density, Liquid Water Content)

We present a new method to derive profiles of extinction from a lidar which is then combined with polarimeter measurements to derive cloud droplet number density (CDNC) in the tops of warm clouds. The method employs polarization-sensitive elastic backscatter lidar measurements to estimate attenuation of the lidar signal within the cloud and polarimeter estimates of cloud droplet size distributions. The measurements used for this demonstration are from NASA Langley Research Center’s High Spectral Resolution Lidar – Generation 2 (HSRL-2) and NASA GISS’s Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP). The measurements were acquired on NASA’s ACTIVATE mission, during which the instruments were deployed in a down-looking mode from a high-altitude aircraft, which flew in coordination with a low-flying aircraft acquiring coincident in situ measurements of cloud droplet size and number. The high vertical (1.25 m) and horizontal (~50 m) sampling resolution of the HSRL-2 data enabled retrievals of single-scattering extinction profiles to within ~2.5 optical depths of cloud top. Another key feature of the method was the well-calibrated measurement of backscatter at cloud top due to using the HSRL technique. The RSP retrievals of cloud droplet effective radius and variance were accomplished using the “cloud-bow” technique. Overall, the technique provides extinction profile estimates for the top 2.5 optical depths of water clouds that can be used to estimate the cloud droplet number density in various types of warm clouds. The mean extinction values at cloud top (0-1 optical depth) are compared against cloud drop size and number concentration acquired from wing-mounted probes (e.g., DMT Cloud Droplet Probe - CDP, SPEC Fast Cloud Droplet Probe FCDP, and SPEC 2D Stereo Probe - 2DS) that were deployed on the low-flying aircraft. Comparisons between the effective radius and variance from the polarimeter, lidar ratio (extinction to backscatter) from the lidar and polarimeter, and LWC are also presented. All measurements were acquired over the Western North Atlantic over 3 years from 2020 to 2022.

lidar↗
NASA NTRS1986

Multiple scattering depolarization in marine stratus clouds: Lidar experiments

The depolarization of ruby lidar backscattering caused by multiple scattering in marine stratus clouds was examined systematically from a field site on the southern California coast. Investigated were the effects on the linear depolarization (delta) of lidar receiver field of view (FOV), elevation angle and laser beam pointing errors. An approximately linear increase in maximum delta values was observed with increasing receiver FOV, and the importance of accurate transmitter/receiver beam alignment was demonstrated during experiments in which the laser axis was deliberately misaligned. An elevation angle dependence to the delta values was observed as a consequence of the natural vertical inhomogeneity of water cloud content above the cloud base. Time histories of the depolarization characteristics of dissipating stratus clouds revealed significant spatial and temporal variability in delta values attributed to cloud composition variations. Employing a 1 mrad transmitter FOV, maximum delta values of 0.21 nd 0.33 were observed with 1 and 3 mrad receiver FOVs, respectively, from the low stratus clouds. The fundamental causes and effects on the lidar equation of multiple scattering are also discussed.

Sassen, K.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Impacts of Varying Concentrations of Cloud Condensation Nuclei On Deep Convective Cloud Updrafts – A Multimodel Assessment

This study presents results from a model intercomparison project, focusing on the range of responses in deep convective cloud updrafts to varying cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations amongst seven, state-of-the-art, cloud-resolving models. Simulations of scattered convective clouds near Houston, Texas are conducted, after being initialized with both relatively low and high CCN concentrations. Deep convective updrafts are identified, and trends in the updraft intensity and frequency are assessed. The factors contributing to the vertical velocity tendencies are examined to identify the physical processes associated with the CCN-induced, updraft changes. The models show several consistent trends. In general, the changes between the High- CCN and Low-CCN simulations in updraft magnitudes throughout the depth of the troposphere are within 15% for all of the models. All models produce stronger (~+5-15%) mean updrafts from ~4–7 km above ground level (AGL) in the High-CCN simulations, followed by a waning response up to ~8 km AGL in most of the models. Thermal buoyancy was more sensitive than condensate loading to varying CCN concentrations in most of the models and more impactful in the mean updraft responses. However, there are also differences between the models. The change in the amount of deep convective updrafts varies significantly. Furthermore, approximately half the models demonstrate neutral-to-weaker (~-5-0%) updrafts above ~8 km AGL, while the other models show stronger (~+10%) updrafts in the High-CCN simulations. The combination of the CCN-induced impacts on the buoyancy and vertical perturbation pressure gradient terms better explains these middle- and upper-tropospheric updraft trends than the buoyancy terms alone.

deep convective cloud updrafts↗
NASA NTRS2010

Uncertainties in Ice-Sheet Altimetry from a Spaceborne 1064-nm Single-Channel Lidar Due to Undetected Thin Clouds

In support of the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat)-II mission, this paper studies the bias in surface-elevation measurements caused by undetected thin clouds. The ICESat-II satellite may only have a 1064-nm single-channel lidar onboard. Less sensitive to clouds than the 532-nm channel, the 1064-nm channel tends to miss thin clouds. Previous studies have demonstrated that scattering by cloud particles increases the photon-path length, thus resulting in biases in ice-sheet-elevation measurements from spaceborne lidars. This effect is referred to as atmospheric path delay. This paper complements previous studies in the following ways: First, atmospheric path delay is estimated over the ice sheets based on cloud statistics from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System onboard ICESat and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra and Aqua. Second, the effect of cloud particle size and shape is studied with the state-of-the-art phase functions developed for MODIS cirrus- cloud microphysical model. Third, the contribution of various orders of scattering events to the path delay is studied, and an analytical model of the first-order scattering contribution is developed. This paper focuses on the path delay as a function of telescope field of view (FOV). The results show that reducing telescope FOV can significantly reduce the expected path delay. As an example, the average path delays for FOV = 167 microrad (a 100-m-diameter circle on the surface) caused by thin undetected clouds by the 1064-nm channel over Greenland and East Antarctica are illustrated.

Yang, Yuekui↗
NASA NTRS2008

Modeling the Diffuse Cloud-Top Optical Emissions from Ground and Cloud Flashes

A number of studies have indicated that the diffuse cloud-top optical emissions from intra-cloud (IC) lightning are brighter than that from normal negative cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning, and hence would be easier to detect from a space-based sensor. The primary reason provided to substantiate this claim has been that the IC is at a higher altitude within the cloud and therefore is less obscured by the cloud multiple scattering medium. CGs at lower altitudes embedded deep within the cloud are more obscured, so CG detection is thought to be more difficult. However, other authors claim that because the CG source current (and hence luminosity) is typically substantially larger than IC currents, the greater CG source luminosity is large enough to overcome the effects of multiple scattering. These investigators suggest that the diffuse cloud top emissions from CGs are brighter than from ICs, and hence are easier to detect from space. Still other investigators claim that the detection efficiency of CGs and ICs is about the same because modern detector sensitivity is good enough to "see" either flash type no matter which produces a brighter cloud top emission. To better assess which of these opinions should be accepted, we introduce an extension of a Boltzmann lightning radiative transfer model previously developed. It considers characteristics of the cloud (geometry, dimensions, scattering properties) and specific lightning channel properties (length, geometry, location, current, optical wave front propagation speed/direction). As such, it represents the most detailed modeling effort to date. At least in the few cases studied thus far, it was found that IC flashes appear brighter at cloud top than the lower altitude negative ground flashes, but additional model runs are to be examined before finalizing our general conclusions.

Solakiewicz, Richard↗
NASA NTRS2022

Cloud Adjustments From Large-Scale Smoke–Circulation Interactions Strongly Modulate the Southeastern Atlantic Stratocumulus-to-Cumulus Transition

Smoke from southern Africa blankets the southeastern Atlantic Ocean from June to October, producing strong and competing aerosol radiative effects. Smoke effects on the transition between overcast stratocumulus and scattered cumulus clouds are investigated along a Lagrangian (air-mass-following) trajectory in regional climate and large eddy simulation models. Results are compared with observations from three recent field campaigns that took place in August 2017: ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES), CLouds and Aerosol Radiative Impacts and Forcing: Year 2017 (CLARIFY), and Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC). The case study is set up around the joint ORACLES–CLARIFY flight that took place near Ascension Island on 18 August 2017. Smoke sampled upstream on an ORACLES flight on 15 August 2017 likely entrained into the marine boundary layer later sampled during the joint flight. The case is first simulated with the WRF-CAM5 regional climate model in three distinct setups: (1) FireOn, in which smoke emissions and any resulting smoke–cloud–radiation interactions are included; (2) FireOff, in which no smoke emissions are included; (3) RadOff, in which smoke emissions and their microphysical effects are included but aerosol does not interact directly with radiation. Over the course of the Lagrangian trajectory, differences in free tropospheric thermodynamic properties between FireOn and FireOff are nearly identical to those between FireOn and RadOff, showing that aerosol–radiation interactions are primarily responsible for the free tropospheric effects. These effects are non-intuitive: in addition to the expected heating within the core of the smoke plume, there is also a “banding” effect of cooler temperature (∼1–2 K) and greatly enhanced moisture (>2 g kg−1) at the plume top. This banding effect is caused by a vertical displacement of the former continental boundary layer in the free troposphere in the FireOn simulation resulting from anomalous diabatic heating due to smoke absorption of sunlight that manifests primarily as a few hundred meters per day reduction in large-scale subsidence over the ocean. A large eddy simulation (LES) is then forced with free tropospheric fields taken from the outputs for the WRF-CAM5 FireOn and FireOff runs. Cases are run by selectively perturbing one variable (e.g., aerosol number concentration, temperature, moisture, vertical velocity) at a time to better understand the contributions from different indirect (microphysical), “large-scale” semi-direct (above-cloud thermodynamic and subsidence changes), and “local” semi-direct (below-cloud smoke absorption) effects. Despite a more than 5-fold increase in cloud droplet number concentration when including smoke aerosol concentrations, minimal differences in cloud fraction evolution are simulated by the LES when comparing the base case with a perturbed aerosol case with identical thermodynamic and dynamic forcings. A factor of 2 decrease in background free tropospheric aerosol concentrations from the FireOff simulation shifts the cloud evolution from a classical entrainment-driven “deepening–warming” transition to trade cumulus to a precipitation-driven “drizzle-depletion” transition to open cells, however. The thermodynamic and dynamic changes caused by the WRF-simulated large-scale adjustments to smoke diabatic heating strongly influence cloud evolution in terms of both the rate of deepening (especially for changes in the inversion temperature jump and in subsidence) and in cloud fraction on the final day of the simulation (especially for the moisture “banding” effect). Such large-scale semi-direct effects would not have been possible to simulate using a small-domain LES model alone.

southeast Atlantic Ocean↗
NASA NTRS2023

Polarization Calibration Using Solar Radiation Background Signal Scattered from Dense Cirrus Clouds in the Visible and Ultraviolet Wavelength Regimes

In this presentation we describe the application of a previously developed technique that is now being used to correct the daytime polarization calibration of the CALIPSO lidar. The technique leverages the fact that the solar radiation background signals from dense cirrus clouds are largely unpolarized due to the internal multiple reflections within the non-spherical ice particles and the multiple scattering that occurs among these particles. Therefore, the ratio of polarization components of the cirrus background signals provides a good estimate for the polarization gain ratio (PGR) of the lidar. Using airborne backscatter lidar measurements, this technique was demonstrated to work well in the infrared regime. However, in the visible and ultraviolet regime, the molecular contribution is too large to be ignored, and thus corrections must be applied to account for the highly polarizing characteristics of the molecular scattering. Ignoring molecular scattering contributions can cause PGR errors of 2-3% at 532 nm, where the CALIPSO lidar makes its depolarization measurement. Because of the wavelength dependence of -4 of the molecular scattering, the PGR error can be even larger at the 355 nm wavelength that will be used by ESA’s EarthCARE lidar. To correct the molecular scattering contributions to the lidar received solar background signal, a look-up table has been created using a polarization-sensitive radiative transfer model. This presentation describes the theory and implementation of the molecular scattering correction.

Zhaoyan Liu↗
NASA NTRS1980

Thermal radiation in Arctic stratus clouds

Infrared radiative properties of Arctic stratus clouds in the 10.1-12.7 micron wavelength region are determined from a series of aircraft measurements. The average emissivity of the clouds when scattering is neglected is unity for cloud depths greater than 350 m. Under the assumption that the cloud layers are homogeneous the cloud droplet volume absorption coefficient is estimated as 17 + or - 5 per km. Several mass absorption coefficients are estimated for several assumed liquid water distributions. It is also concluded that the cloud reflectance is not larger than 2 (+ or - 5%).

Herman, G. F.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Optical Detection of Lightning from Space

Two primary detection techniques (optical and RF) have a proven capability for detecting lightning from low earth orbit. However, the lightning processes that generate the optical and RF signals are vastly different providing significantly different information content from each sensor type. Because of the intervening ionosphere, low frequency RF components do not reach satellite altitudes. As a consequence, many of the processes associated with the major energy release of a lightning event (i.e. return strokes, k-changes, recoil streamers, etc), in all likelihood contribute little to the RF signal arriving at the satellite. The optical output from lighting, on the other hand, has been shown to be highly correlated with the energetic, charge-transferring processes mentioned above. On the down side, the optical energy, while essentially unaffected by the atmosphere once it emerges from the cloud, is heavily scattered within the cloud. While there is little absorption by the cloud, the great optical depth makes the total light energy emerging from the cloud to be dependent on where in the cloud the lightning occurred. Analyses suggest that when lightning is confined to the lowest regions of the cloud, the light is strongly attenuated and detection becomes problematic. Fortunately, the vast majority of lightning flashes are comprised of channels that propagate through the middle of the cloud and higher. These flashes produce bright signals at the top of a cloud and are readily detectable. Presently, we have two optical instruments in orbit. The Optical Transient Detector (OTD) has been orbiting the earth since April, 1995, while the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) was launched on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) in November of 1997. Both instruments are relatively small, solid state optical imagers, designed specifically to detect and locate lightning activity from low earth orbit with high detection efficiency and location accuracy.

Christian, H. J.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Sensitivity of Photolysis Frequencies and Key Tropospheric Oxidants in a Global Model to Cloud Vertical Distributions and Optical Properties

Clouds affect tropospheric photochemistry through modification of solar radiation that determines photolysis frequencies. As a follow-up study to our recent assessment of the radiative effects of clouds on tropospheric chemistry, this paper presents an analysis of the sensitivity of such effects to cloud vertical distributions and optical properties (cloud optical depths (CODs) and cloud single scattering albedo), in a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem). GEOS-Chem was driven with a series of meteorological archives (GEOS1- STRAT, GEOS-3 and GEOS-4) generated by the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System data assimilation system. Clouds in GEOS1-STRAT and GEOS-3 have more similar vertical distributions (with substantially smaller CODs in GEOS1-STRAT) while those in GEOS-4 are optically much thinner in the tropical upper troposphere. We find that the radiative impact of clouds on global photolysis frequencies and hydroxyl radical (OH) is more sensitive to the vertical distribution of clouds than to the magnitude of column CODs. With random vertical overlap for clouds, the model calculated changes in global mean OH (J(O1D), J(NO2)) due to the radiative effects of clouds in June are about 0.0% (0.4%, 0.9%), 0.8% (1.7%, 3.1%), and 7.3% (4.1%, 6.0%), for GEOS1-STRAT, GEOS-3 and GEOS-4, respectively; the geographic distributions of these quantities show much larger changes, with maximum decrease in OH concentrations of approx.15-35% near the midlatitude surface. The much larger global impact of clouds in GEOS-4 reflects the fact that more solar radiation is able to penetrate through the optically thin upper-tropospheric clouds, increasing backscattering from low-level clouds. Model simulations with each of the three cloud distributions all show that the change in the global burden of ozone due to clouds is less than 5%. Model perturbation experiments with GEOS-3, where the magnitude of 3-D CODs are progressively varied from -100% to 100%, predict only modest changes (<5%) in global mean OH concentrations. J(O1D), J(NO2) and OH3 concentrations show the strongest sensitivity for small CODs and become insensitive at large CODs due to saturation effects. Caution should be exercised not to use in photochemical models a value for cloud single scattering albedo lower than about 0.999 in order to be consistent with the current knowledge of cloud absorption at the ultraviolet wavelengths.

Liu, Hongyu↗
NASA NTRS1972

Degree and plane of polarization of multiple scattered light. 1: Homogeneous cloud layers

The degree of polarization and the direction of the plane of polarization are calculated by a Monte Carlo method for homogeneous layers. Two solar zenith angles and a range of optical thicknesses up to 10 are considered. The results are compared with calculations for single scattered photons. For a given pair of incident and scattered directions, there are only two possible values for the direction of the plane of polarization differing by 90 deg for single scattering from spherical aerosols. The choice between these two values depends only on the sign of the element M(-) in the first row and second column of the scattering matrix in the I, Q, U, V representation. In most cases there is little change in the direction of the plane of polarization when multiple scattering is taken into account, so that this quantity can usually be predicted from a very simple trigonometric relationship to good accuracy. Measurements of the direction of the plane of polarization at appropriately chosen angles provides information about the size distribution of the scattering centers.

Kattawar, G. W.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Retrieval Of Cloud Pressure And Chlorophyll Content Using Raman Scattering In GOME Ultraviolet Spectra

Reliable cloud pressure estimates are needed for accurate retrieval of ozone and other trace gases using satellite-borne backscatter ultraviolet (buv) instruments such as the global ozone monitoring experiment (GOME). Cloud pressure can be derived from buv instruments by utilizing the properties of rotational-Raman scattering (RRS) and absorption by O2-O2. In this paper we estimate cloud pressure from GOME observations in the 355-400 nm spectral range using the concept of a Lambertian-equivalent reflectivity (LER) surface. GOME has full spectral coverage in this range at relatively high spectral resolution with a very high signal-to-noise ratio. This allows for much more accurate estimates of cloud pressure than were possible with its predecessors SBUV and TOMS. We also demonstrate the potential capability to retrieve chlorophyll content with full-spectral buv instruments. We compare our retrieved LER cloud pressure with cloud top pressures derived from the infrared ATSR instrument on the same satellite. The findings confirm results from previous studies that showed retrieved LER cloud pressures from buv observations are systematically higher than IR-derived cloud-top pressure. Simulations using Mie-scattering radiative transfer algorithms that include O2-O2 absorption and RRS show that these differences can be explained by increased photon path length within and below cloud.

Atlas, Robert↗