11th Conference on Atmospheric Radiation and the 11th Conference on Cloud Physics

Monday, 3 June 2002: 4:45 PM
An Interhemispheric Comparison of Cirrus Cloud Properties Using MODIS and GOES
David P. Duda, Hampton University, Hampton, VA; and P. Minnis, W. L. Smith Jr., S. Sun-Mack, J. K. Ayers, J. F. Gayet, F. Auriol, J. Strom, A. Minkin, A. Petzold, and U. Schumann
Poster PDF (391.3 kB)
The INterhemispheric differences in Cirrus properties from Anthropogenic emissions (INCA) experiment obtained aircraft-based measurements of upper tropospheric properties in the Northern and Southern hemispheres for comparable latitudes, seasons and backgrounds to determine any differences in cirrus clouds that may be attributable to air pollution. As a follow-up to this study, we compare ice cloud properties in the Southern (without strong pollution) and Northern hemisphere (with strong pollution) at mid-latitudes by using multi-spectral cloud property retrievals to compile the cirrus properties for one month each over both INCA regions (around Scotland and southern Chile). Data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-8) imager and the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (Terra MODIS) are used in the remote sensing retrievals. Various screening criteria are tested to minimize complicating factors such as surface differences and low cloud contamination. The satellite-derived cirrus cloud properties from the polluted and unpolluted regions are compared to the aircraft-based measurements from the INCA campaign.

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