Post on 14-Dec-2015
Application of Cloudnet data in the validation of SCIAMACHY cloud height products
Ping Wang Piet Stammes
KNMI, De Bilt, The Netherlands
CESAR Science day, 19 June, 2013
Overview
• SCIAMACHY cloud products
• Cloud retrieval algorithms from O2 A band
• Validation data sets • Results• Summary
SCIAMACHY cloud products• ESA L2 (v5.02)Cloud top height and Cloud optical thickness are retrieved from SACURA. Cloud optical thickness is only retrieved for thick clouds, > 5. Cloud fraction is retrieved from PMDs (OCRA).
• FRESCO (v6)Effective cloud fraction and cloud height are retrieved from FRESCO. The cloud height is close to the middle of the cloud. FRESCO: Fast Retrieval Scheme for Clouds from the Oxygen A band
FRESCO cloud algorithms
Lambertian cloud model
Cloud data sets of SCIAMACHY
Data: ESA level-2, version 5.02, FRESCO, version 6
• Intercomparison data set - one orbit per month from 2002 to 2012, including 4 full day of data (~160 orbits).
• Validation data set - SCIAMACHY overpass pixels at Cabauw (2003- 2005) and Lindenberg (2005-2012). (~700 measurements)
Distributions of the differences (L2 –FRESCO)
Mean difference -0.0225 Standard deviation 0.100
Mean difference 0.609 km Standard deviation 2.16 km
Cloud fraction Cloud height
Cloudnet data
Instruments:
Radar : large particles such as rain and drizzle drops, ice particles, and insectsLidar : higher concentrations of smaller particles, such as cloud droplets, aerosol, supercooled liquid layers Microwave radiometer: liquid water pathRain gauge: precipitation
Cloudnet cloud top height, cloud base height and target categorization data are selected for one hour, centered at SCIAMACHY overpass time.
Illingworth et al., BAMS, 2007. http://www.cloud-net.org
Cloudnet categorization product
Ice cloud
Water cloud
height grid time resolution
Cabauw: 0.253-11.5km, 90m (126 levels), 15s (240 /hr) Lindenberg: 0.355-15.2km, 30m (495 levels), 30s (120 /hr)
Cloud top
Cloud base
Cloudnet categorization product
Ice cloud
Water cloud
height grid time resolution
Cabauw: 0.253-11.5km, 90m (126 levels), 15s (240 /hr) Lindenberg: 0.355-15.2km, 30m (495 levels), 30s (120 /hr)
Cloud top
Cloud base
Cloud top of ESA L2 vs. Cloudnet: single layer clouds
All clouds
water clouds
ice clouds
Color scale: ESA L2 cloud fraction
All clouds
ice clouds
water clouds
Cloud height of FRESCO vs. Cloudnet cloud top: single layer clouds
Color scale: FRESCO effective cloud fraction
SCIA cloud heights and Cloudnet cloud boundaries: single layer clouds, ceff>0.1
SCIAMACHY and Cloudnet cloud heights: single layer clouds, ceff>0.1
SCIAMACHY cloud height vs. Cloudnet cloud top: multi-layer clouds
ESA L2 cloud top height
FRESCO cloud height
SCIAMACHY and Cloudnet cloud heights: Multi-layer clouds
Summary (1)SCIAMACHY ESA L2 v5.02 cloud fractions are similar to FRESCO v6 effective cloud fractions. For the selected data from 200210 to 201204, the mean difference is -0.0225 and the standard deviation is 0.10.
SCIAMACHY ESA L2 v5.02 cloud top height is higher than FRESCO cloud height. The mean difference of cloud heights is 0.609 km with a standard deviation of 2.16 km for pixels without snow/ice.
Summary (2)We compared ESA L2 and FRESCO cloud heights with Cloudnet products for 220 single layer cloud cases in 2003-2011.
For single layer clouds, ESA L2 cloud top height is close to lidar/radar cloud top height for clouds at 3-7 km.FRESCO cloud height is close to lidar/radar cloud middle height for clouds below 5 km.
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank Henk Klein-Baltink (KMNI) for helpful discussions.
We acknowledge the Cloudnet project (European Union contract EVK2-2000-00611) for providing the target classification and cloud boundaries, which was produced by the University of Reading using measurements from Cabauw and Lindenberg.