Search results for "Cloud top"
showing 10 items of 20 documents
Towards a novel approach for Sentinel-3 synergistic OLCI/SLSTR cloud and cloud shadow detection based on stereo cloud-top height estimation
2021
Abstract Sentinel-3 is an Earth observation satellite constellation launched by the European Space Agency. Each satellite carries two optical multispectral instruments: the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) and the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR). OLCI and SLSTR sensors produce images covering the visible and infrared spectrum that can be collocated in order to generate synergistic products. In Earth observation, a particular weakness of optical sensors is their high sensitivity to clouds and their shadows. An incorrect cloud and cloud shadow detection leads to mistakes in both land and ocean retrievals of biophysical parameters. In order to exploit both OLCI and S…
Comparing Airborne and Satellite Retrievals of Optical and Microphysical Properties of Cirrus and Deep Convective Clouds using a Radiance Ratio Techn…
2017
Abstract. 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 HALO (High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft) during the ML-CIRRUS and the ACRIDICON-CHUVA campaigns. In particular flights, HALO performed closely collocated measurements with overpasses of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board of Aqua satellite. Based on the nadir upward radiance, the optical thickness τ and bulk particle effective radius reff of cirrus and DCC are retrieved using a radiance ratio algorithm which considers the cloud thermodynamic phase, the cloud verti…
Spectral optical layer properties of cirrus from collocated airborne measurements and simulations
2016
Abstract. Spectral upward and downward solar irradiances from vertically collocated measurements above and below a cirrus layer are used to derive cirrus optical layer properties such as spectral transmissivity, absorptivity, reflectivity, and cloud top albedo. The radiation measurements are complemented by in situ cirrus crystal size distribution measurements and radiative transfer simulations based on the microphysical data. The close collocation of the radiative and microphysical measurements, above, beneath, and inside the cirrus, is accomplished by using a research aircraft (Learjet 35A) in tandem with the towed sensor platform AIRTOSS (AIRcraft TOwed Sensor Shuttle). AIRTOSS can be re…
Cloud top altitude retrieved from Lidar measurements during ACLOUD at 1 second resolution
2021
During the ACLOUD aircraft campaign (23.5.2017 - 26.6.2017) the AMALi Lidar was installed mostly nadir pointing. This dataset contains the cloud top altitude from those measurements (altitudes with a strong signal increase) as well as a cloud mask, derived from the optical depth of the column at 1 second resolution. The majority of the data was collected northwest of the Svalbard archipelago. More details on the campaign can be found in Wendisch 2018 and Ehrlich 2019 and here (https://home.uni-leipzig.de/~ehrlich/ACLOUD_wiki_doku). Please check the data documentation (https://download.pangaea.de/reference/108729/attachments/readme_documentation_AMALi_cloudtop.pdf) before using this dataset.
Stereo Matching Tecniques for Cloud-top Height Retrieval
2006
This paper presents an ongoing study for the estimation of the cloud-top height by using only geometrical methods. It is based on the hypothesis that an infra-red camera is on board a satellite and pairs of images concern nearly the same scene. Stereo-vision techniques are therefore explored in order to test the methodology for height retrieval and in particular results of several techniques of stereo matching are evaluated. This study includes area-based matching algorithms by implementing the basic versions, without considering any further steps of optimisation to improve the results. Dense depth maps are the final outputs whose reliability is verified by computing error statistics with r…
Collocated measurements of boundary layer cloud microphysical and radiative properties: A feasibility study
2010
[1] First data from collocated, helicopter-based measurements of boundary layer cloud microphysical properties (effective droplet radius Reff, droplet number concentration N) and spectral radiative quantities (cloud optical thickness τ, cloud top albedo ρ, reflectivity ) are presented. The in situ measurements of the microphysical cloud properties were collected by the Airborne Cloud Turbulence Observation System (ACTOS) attached to a helicopter by a 145 m long rope. Cloud spectral reflectivity was derived from radiances measured by grating spectrometers combined with downward looking optical inlets installed underneath the helicopter. Correlations between cloud microphysics and reflected r…
Explicit cloud-top entrainment parameterization in the global climate model ECHAM5-HAM
2011
New developments in the turbulence parameterization in the general circulation model ECHAM5-HAM are presented. They consist mainly of an explicit entrainment closure at the top of stratocumulus-capped boundary layers and the addition of an explicit contribution of the radiative divergence in the buoyancy production term. The impact of the new implementations on a single column model study and on the global scale is presented here. The parameterization has a "smoothing" effect: the abnormally high values of turbulence kinetic energy are reduced, both in the single column and in the Californian stratocumulus region. A sensitivity study with prescribed droplet concentration shows a reduction i…
Comparison of stereo vision techniques for cloud-top height retrieval
2007
This paper presents an ongoing study for the estimation of the cloud-top height by using only geometrical methods. In agreement with some recent studies showing that it is possible to achieve reliable height estimations not only with the classical methods based on radiative transfer, this article includes a comparison of performances of a selected set of vision algorithms devoted to extract dense disparity maps or motion fields from Infra Red stereo image pairs. This collection includes both area-based techniques and an optical flow-based method and the comparison is accomplished by using a set of cloudy scenes selected from the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR2) database. The first gr…
Observation of intrinsically bright terrestrial gamma ray flashes from the Mediterranean basin
2015
Abstract We present three terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) observed over the Mediterranean basin by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscope Imager (RHESSI) satellite. Since the occurrence of these events in the Mediterranean region is quite rare, the characterization of the events was optimized by combining different approaches in order to better define the cloud of origin. The TGFs on 7 November 2004 and 16 October 2006 came from clouds with cloud top higher than 10–12 km where often a strong penetration into the stratosphere is found. This kind of cloud is usually associated with heavy precipitation and intense lightning activity. Nevertheless, the analysis of the cloud type…
Convective hydration in the tropical tropopause layer during the StratoClim aircraft campaign: pathway of an observed hydration patch
2018
The source and pathway of the hydration patch in the TTL (tropical tropopause layer) that was measured during the Stratospheric and upper tropospheric processes for better climate predictions (StratoClim) field campaign during the Asian summer monsoon in 2017 and its connection to convective overshoots are investigated. During flight no. 7, two remarkable layers are measured in the TTL, namely (1) the moist layer (ML) with a water vapour content of 4.8–5.7 ppmv in altitudes of 18–19 km in the lower stratosphere and (2) the ice layer (IL) with ice content up to 1.9 eq. ppmv (equivalent parts per million by volume) in altitudes of 17–18 km in the upper tropo…