Construction of JAXA EarthCARE A-Train Research Product

Clouds and aerosols are the key players in the climate system; however, they are also the main sources of uncertainty in our knowledge. To improve our understanding of the roles of clouds and aerosols and their interaction in the context of the Earth's radiation budget and climate, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is developing the EarthCARE (Earth Clouds, Aerosols, and Radiation Explorer) mission in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). The EarthCARE satellite will carry the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) developed by JAXA and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), the Atmospheric Lidar (ATLID), Multi-spectral Imager (MSI), and Broadband Radiometer (BBR) developed by ESA. Especially, the CPR will have the first 94-GHz radar in space with Doppler capability, which gives information on particle fall speeds, leading to improve the accuracy of classification and microphysical retrieval of hydrometeor particles, and their representations of global climate prediction models.

Long-term dataset will be helpful for climate studies. Therefore, JAXA Earth Observation Research Center (EORC) is constructing an A-train (CloudSat/CALIOP/MODIS) dataset using algorithms developed for the JAXA EarthCARE mission and is planning to distribute as a JAXA EarthCARE research product. All the observables and retrieved parameters are collocated to the horizontal and vertical resolutions of 1.1 km and 240 m, respectively. The height of the grid centers ranges from 120 to 19800 m. The retrieved products include radar and lidar cloud masks [Hagihara et al., 2010], vertically resolved lidar cloud particle type [Yoshida et al., 2010; Hirakata et al., 2014], radar and lidar cloud microphysics [Okamoto et al., 2010], lidar aerosol mask and properties [Nishizawa et al., 2007; 2008], and imager cloud mask and microphysics [Ishida and Nakajima 2009; Kawamoto et al., 2001]. The product is expected to be used in the evaluation of climate models [e.g., Hashino et al., 2013], and they will be available online through the JAXA/EORC website with various visualized figures. In addition, we also will demonstrate the statistical analysis results by making use of our product.