An Improvement to the High-Spectral-Resolution CO2-Slicing Cloud-Top Altitude Retrieval

Robert E. Holz; Steve Ackerman; Paolo Antonelli; Fred Nagle; Robert O. Knuteson; Matthew McGill; Dennis L. Hlavka; William D. Hart

doi:10.1175/JTECH1877.1

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An Improvement to the High-Spectral-Resolution CO2-Slicing Cloud-Top Altitude Retrieval

Journal article

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An Improvement to the High-Spectral-Resolution CO2-Slicing Cloud-Top Altitude Retrieval

Robert E. Holz, Steve Ackerman, Paolo Antonelli, Fred Nagle, Robert O. Knuteson, Matthew McGill, Dennis L. Hlavka and William D. Hart

Journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology, Vol.23(5), pp.653-670

05/01/2006

DOI: 10.1175/JTECH1877.1

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Abstract

Abstract An improvement to high-spectral-resolution infrared cloud-top altitude retrievals is compared to existing retrieval methods and cloud lidar measurements. The new method, CO2 sorting, determines optimal channel pairs to which the CO2 slicing retrieval will be applied. The new retrieval is applied to aircraft Scanning High-Resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS) measurements. The results are compared to existing passive retrieval methods and coincident Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) measurements. It is demonstrated that when CO2 sorting is used to select channel pairs for CO2 slicing there is an improvement in the retrieved cloud heights when compared to the CPL for the optically thin clouds (total optical depths less than 1.0). For geometrically thick but tenuous clouds, the infrared retrieved cloud tops underestimated the cloud height, when compared to those of the CPL, by greater than 2.5 km. For these cases the cloud heights retrieved by the S-HIS correlated closely with the level at which the CPL-integrated cloud optical depth was approximately 1.0.

Details

Title: Subtitle: An Improvement to the High-Spectral-Resolution CO2-Slicing Cloud-Top Altitude Retrieval
Creators: Robert E. Holz - University of Wisconsin–Madison
Steve Ackerman - University of Wisconsin–Madison
Paolo Antonelli - University of Wisconsin–Madison
Fred Nagle - University of Wisconsin–Madison
Robert O. Knuteson - University of Wisconsin–Madison
Matthew McGill - Goddard Space Flight Center
Dennis L. Hlavka - Goddard Space Flight Center
William D. Hart - Goddard Space Flight Center
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology, Vol.23(5), pp.653-670
DOI: 10.1175/JTECH1877.1
ISSN: 0739-0572
eISSN: 1520-0426
Language: English
Date published: 05/01/2006
Academic Unit: Physics and Astronomy; Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Record Identifier: 9984277460002771

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