Understanding Satellite Cirrus Cloud Climatologies with Calibrated Lidar Optical Depths

Abstract

Optical depth measurements of transmissive cirrus clouds were made using coincident lidar and satellite data to improve our interpretation of recent satellite cloud climatologies. These climatologies differ in the way they detect transmissive clouds because some use solar reflectance data (ISCCP) while other use multi-spectral infrared data (CO2 Slicing). To relate these climatologies and estimate the impact of transmissive clouds on the earth's heat budget, a relationship between visible and infrared radiation properties has to be used. We examined the popular assumption that the ratio of the visible to infrared optical depths should be 2.0 because the visible extinction cross section is twice the infrared absorption cross section when cloud particles are large compared to the wavelength.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA351128

Entities

People

  • Donald Wylie
  • Edwin Eloranta
  • Paivi Piironen
  • Walter Wolf

Organizations

  • University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Absorption
  • Absorption Cross Sections
  • Atmospheric Sciences
  • Cirrus Clouds
  • Climate Change
  • Climatology
  • Clouds
  • Heat Energy
  • Measurement
  • Optical Properties
  • Optics
  • Particles
  • Physical Properties
  • Radiation
  • Radiative Transfer
  • Scattering
  • Space Sciences

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Atmospheric Remote Sensing.

Technology Areas

  • Space