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

Tuesday, 4 June 2002: 10:45 AM
Comparison of MODIS and MISR Tropical Cirrus Retrievalsm (Formerly paper P4.14)
Sarah M. Thomas, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI; and B. A. Baum, S. L. Nasiri, A. Heymsfield, P. Yang, E. Clothiaux, and D. P. Kratz
Poster PDF (171.9 kB)
We will describe the various techniques being used for the remote sensing of tropical cirrus properties from co-located MODIS and MISR multispectral data. Our interest is primarily on the intercomparison and synergy of the cirrus properties inferred from MODIS and MISR data, specifically cloud height, optical thickness, and particle size. Cirrus retrievals will be compared to observations from the ARM Clouds and Radiation Testbed (CART) Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) site. We will also describe the development of new tropical cirrus microphysical models developed from in-situ measurements of both particle size and habit distributions. These cirrus microphysical models are in turn used to develop single scattering models for use with the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and MISR (Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer) instruments. Both MODIS and MISR are on the NASA Terra platform, which is in a polar-orbiting, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 705 km. MODIS has 36 spectral bands between 0.415 and 14.235 microns in four focal plane assemblies, with spatial resolutions of 250 m (2 bands), 500 m (5 bands) and 1000 m (29 bands). MISR records data at four wavelengths ranging from 0.41 to 0.91 microns from a set of 9 cameras aligned alongtrack.

Supplementary URL: