11th Conference on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography

Wednesday, 17 October 2001
MISR cloud radiation measurements for testing plane-parallel radiative transfer theory
Iliana Genkova, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; and R. Davies
This investigation compares MISR data derived BRFs with BRFs calculated by means of DISORT program. Consistency estimation has been conducted as well. This has been done regarding understanding some radiative and microphysical cloud properties.

When using MISR data, the influence of such factors as cloud phase and homogeneity, cloud height, wind speed and accuracy of the registration have been considered. Quantitative limitations have been set for choosing appropriate cloud scenes so to provide best matching of the plane-parallel theory assumptions.

DISORT utilization simulates the experiment geometry and conditions. Varying the optical depth values results into quantitative changes in the calculated BRF's, while choosing different scattering functions leads to better fit of the real data. The parameters of the embedded size distributions are taken from different autors.

Analyses have been done over more than 50 scenes with different type of cloud coverage. Preliminary results show best agreement from flat top homogeneous water clouds. Further detailed analysis over marine stratocumulus and stratus clouds is being conducted to examine the role of cloud height fluctuations.

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