High Resolution Heating and Cooling Rates in 3-D Clouds

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2018

Solar radiation reflected by cirrus and deep convective clouds (DCCs) was measured by the Spectral Modular Airborne Radiation Measurement System (SMART) installed on the German High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO) during the Mid-Latitude Cirrus (ML-CIRRUS) and the Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interaction and Dynamic of Convective Clouds System -Cloud Processes of the Main Precipitation Systems in Brazil: A Contribution to Cloud Resolving Modelling and to the Global Precipitation Measurement (ACRIDICON-CHUVA) campaigns. On particular flights, HALO performed measurements closely collocated with overpasses of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. A cirrus cloud located above liquid water clouds and a DCC topped by an anvil cirrus are analyzed in this paper. Based on the nadir spectral upward radiance measured above the two clouds, the optical thickness τ and particle effective radius r eff of the cirrus and DCC are retrieved using a radiance ratio technique, which considers the cloud thermodynamic phase, the vertical profile of cloud microphysical properties, the presence of multilayer clouds, and the heterogeneity of the surface albedo. For the cirrus case, the comparison of τ and r eff retrieved on the ba-sis of SMART and MODIS measurements yields a normalized mean absolute deviation of up to 1.2 % for τ and 2.1 % for r eff . For the DCC case, deviations of up to 3.6 % for τ and 6.2 % for r eff are obtained. The larger deviations in the DCC case are mainly attributed to the fast cloud evolution and three-dimensional (3-D) radiative effects. Measurements of spectral upward radiance at near-infrared wavelengths are employed to investigate the vertical profile of r eff in the cirrus. The retrieved values of r eff are compared with corresponding in situ measurements using a vertical weighting method. Compared to the MODIS observations, measurements of SMART provide more information on the vertical distribution of particle sizes, which allow reconstructing the profile of r eff close to the cloud top. The comparison between retrieved and in situ r eff yields a normalized mean absolute deviation, which ranges between 1.5 and 10.3 %, and a robust correlation coefficient of 0.82.

2011

We proposed a variety of tasks centered on the following question: what can we learn about 3D cloud-radiation processes and aerosol-cloud interaction from rapid-sampling ARM measurements of spectral zenith radiance? These ARM measurements offer spectacular new and largely unexploited capabilities in both the temporal and spectral domains. Unlike most other ARM instruments, which average over many seconds or take samples many seconds apart, the new spectral zenith radiance measurements are fast enough to resolve natural time scales of cloud change and cloud boundaries as well as the transition zone between cloudy and clear areas. In the case of the shortwave spectrometer, the measurements offer high time resolution and high spectral resolution, allowing new discovery-oriented science which we intend to pursue vigorously. Research objectives are, for convenience, grouped under three themes: 3. Highlights (References to cited papers are given in []) (1) ARM SWS data are used to study cloudy-clear transition zone [9]. To the naked eye, clouds appear to have sharp boundaries. But cloud boundaries are actually somewhat fuzzy. Fuzzy cloud boundaries create major headaches for studies of aerosol indirect effect and aerosol radiative forcing-especially when, as with most satellite instruments, spatial resolution is too poor to resolve the transition zone. Recently, onesec-resolution data from the shortwave spectrometer (SWS) provide a unique opportunity to analyze the transition zone. In Fig. 1 we demonstrated a remarkable linear relationship in the transition zone between the sum and difference of radiances at 870 and 1640 nm wavelengths. The intercept of the relationship is mostly determined by aerosol optical depth, while the slope is mostly determined by cloud droplet size. This linearity could be predicted from simple theoretical considerations and furthermore supported the inhomogeneous mixing hypothesis.

Simulations of total and polarized cloud reflectance angular signatures such as the ones measured by the multiangular and polarized radiometer POLDER3/PARASOL are used to evaluate cloud heterogeneity effects on cloud parameter retrievals. Effects on optical thickness, cloud albedo, effective radius and variance of the cloud droplet size distribution and aerosol above cloud optical thickness are analyzed. Three different clouds having the same mean optical thicknesses were 15 generated: the first one with a flat top, the second one with a bumpy top and the last one with a fractional cloud cover. At small scale (50 m), for oblique solar incidence, the illumination effects lead to higher total but also polarized reflectances. The polarized reflectances even reach values that cannot be predicted by the 1D homogeneous cloud assumption. At the POLDER scale (7 km x 7 km), the angular signature is modified by a combination of the plane-parallel bias and the shadowing and illumination effects. In order to quantify effects of cloud heterogeneity on operational products, we ran the 20 POLDER operational algorithms on the simulated reflectances to retrieve the cloud optical thickness and albedo. Results show that the cloud optical thickness is greatly affected: biases can reach up to-70%,-50% or +40% for backward, nadir and forward viewing directions respectively. Concerning the cloud albedo, the errors are smaller, between-4.7% for solar incidence angle of 20° and up to about 8% for solar incidence angle of 60°. We also tested the heterogeneity effects on new algorithms that allow retrieving cloud droplet size distribution and cloud top pressures and also aerosol above clouds. 25 Contrarily to the bi-spectral method, the retrieved cloud droplet size parameters are not significantly affected by the cloud heterogeneity, which proves to be a great advantage of using polarized measurements. However the cloud top pressure obtained from molecular scattering in the forward direction can be biased up to 120 hPa (around 1 km). Concerning the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) above cloud, the results are different depending on the available angular information. Above the fractional cloud, when only side scattering angles are available, the AOT can be underestimated because of the plane-30 parallel bias. For solar zenith angle of 60°, on contrary, it is overestimated because the polarized reflectances are increased in forward directions.

Atmospheric Measurement Techniques

Journal of Climate, 2003

Atmospheric Research, 2000

In this conclusion paper, remote sensing retrievals of cloud optical thickness performed during the EUCREX mission 206 are analyzed. The comparison with estimates derived from in situ measurements demonstrates that the adiabatic model of cloud microphysics is more realistic than Ž . the vertically uniform plane parallel model VUPPM for parameterization of optical thickness. The analysis of the frequency distributions of optical thickness in the cloud layer then shows that the adiabatic model provides a good prediction when the cloud layer is thick and homogeneous, ) Corresponding author. J.-L Brenguier . 0169-8095r00r$ -see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ž . PII: S 0 1 6 9 -8 0 9 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 8 -2 ( ) H. Pawlowska et al.r Atmospheric Research 55 2000 85-102 86

Atmospheric Measurement Techniques

Simulations of total and polarized cloud reflectance angular signatures such as the ones measured by the multi-angular and polarized radiometer POLDER3/PARASOL are used to evaluate cloud heterogeneity effects on cloud parameter retrievals. Effects on optical thickness, albedo, effective radius and variance of the cloud droplet size distribution and aerosol parameters above cloud are analyzed. Three different clouds that have the same mean optical thicknesses were generated: the first with a flat top, the second with a bumpy top and the last with a fractional cloud cover. At small scale (50 m), for oblique solar incidence, the illumination effects lead to higher total but also polarized reflectances. The polarized reflectances even reach values that cannot be predicted by the 1-D homogeneous cloud assumption. At the POLDER scale (7 km × 7 km), the angular signature is modified by a combination of the planeparallel bias and the shadowing and illumination effects. In order to quantify effects of cloud heterogeneity on operational products, we ran the POLDER operational algorithms on the simulated reflectances to retrieve the cloud optical thickness and albedo. Results show that the cloud optical thickness is greatly affected: biases can reach up to −70, −50 or +40 % for backward, nadir and forward viewing directions, respectively. Concerning the albedo of the cloudy scenes, the errors are smaller, between −4.7 % for solar incidence angle of 20 • and up to about +8 % for solar incidence angle of 60 •. We also tested the heterogeneity effects on new algorithms that allow retrieving cloud droplet size distribution and cloud top pressures and also aerosol above clouds. Contrary to the bi-spectral method, the retrieved cloud droplet size parameters are not significantly affected by the cloud heterogeneity, which proves to be a great advantage of using polarized measurements. However, the cloud top pressure obtained from molecular scattering in the forward direction can be biased up to about 60 hPa (around 550 m). Concerning the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) above cloud, the results are different depending on the available angular information. Above the fractional cloud, when only side scattering angles between 100 and 130 • are available, the AOT is underestimated because of the plane-parallel bias. However, for solar zenith angle of 60 • it is overestimated because the polarized reflectances are increased in forward directions.

Journal of Geophysical Research, 2008

Among the largest uncertainties in quantifying the radiative impacts of clouds are those that arise from the inherent difficulty in precisely specifying the vertical distribution of cloud optical properties using passive satellite measurements. Motivated by the need to address this problem, CloudSat was launched in April 2006 carrying into orbit the first millimeter wavelength cloud radar to be flown in space. Retrieved profiles of liquid and ice cloud microphysical properties from this Cloud Profiling Radar form the basis of the CloudSat's fluxes and heating rates algorithm, 2B-FLXHR, a standard product that provides high vertical resolution profiles of radiative fluxes and atmospheric heating rates on the global scale. This paper describes the physical basis of the 2B-FLXHR algorithm and documents the first year of 2B-FLXHR data in the context of assessing the radiative impact of clouds on global and regional scales. The analysis confirms that cloud contributions to atmospheric radiative heating are small on the global scale because of a cancelation of the much larger regional heating from high clouds in the tropics and cooling from low clouds at higher latitudes. Preliminary efforts to assess the accuracy of the 2B-FLXHR product using coincident CERES data demonstrate that outgoing longwave fluxes are better represented than those in the shortwave but both exhibit good agreement with CERES on scales longer than 5 days and larger than 5°. Colocated CALIPSO observations of clouds that are undetected by CloudSat further indicate that while thin cirrus can introduce modest uncertainty in the products, low clouds that are obscured by ground clutter represent a far more important source of error in the current 2B-FLXHR product that must be addressed in subsequent versions of the algorithm.

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2000

The influence of anthropogenic aerosols, in the form of ship exhaust effluent, on the microphysics and radiative properties of marine stratocumulus is studied using data gathered from the U.K. Met. Office C-130 and the University of Washington C-131A aircraft during the Monterey Area Ship Track (MAST) experiment in 1994. During the period of MAST, stratocumulus clouds were studied during 11 flights and a wide range of levels of background pollution was observed. The impact of the aerosol emitted from the ships was found to be very dependent on the background cloud microphysical conditions. In clouds of continental influence, the susceptibility of the cloud to further aerosol emissions was low, with a correspondingly weak microphysics and radiation signature in the ship tracks. In clean clouds, changes in droplet concentration of a factor of 2, and reductions in droplet size of up to 50%, were measured. These changes in the microphysics had significant impacts on the cloud radiative forcing. Furthermore, as a result of the cloud droplet size being reduced, in some cases the drizzle was suppressed in the clean clouds, resulting in an increase in liquid water path in the polluted ship track environment. The impact of this combined change in liquid water path and droplet radius was to increase the cloud radiative forcing by up to a factor of 4.

Journal of Climate, 2000

Radiative flux changes induced by the occurrence of different cloud types are investigated using International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project cloud data and a refined radiative transfer model from National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model. Cloud types are defined by their top height and optical thickness. Cloud-type variations are shown to be as important as cloud cover in modifying the radiation field of the earth-atmosphere system. Other variables, such as the solar insolation and atmospheric and surface properties, also play significant roles in determining regional cloud radiative effects. The largest ''annual'' mean (approximated by averaging the results of four particular days, one from each season) changes of the global top-of-atmosphere and surface shortwave radiative fluxes are produced by stratocumulus, altostratus, and cirrostratus clouds (i.e., clouds with moderate optical thicknesses). Cirrus, cirrostratus, and deep convective clouds (i.e., the highest-level clouds) cause most of the annual mean changes in the global top-ofatmosphere longwave radiative fluxes; whereas the largest annual mean changes of the global surface longwave radiative fluxes are caused by stratocumulus, cumulus, and altostratus.