It is well documented that in-flight icing is a hazard for aircraft; hence, knowledge of the microphysical properties at cloud top can be a valuable aid in the identification of possible in-flight icing conditions. The NASA-Langley Research Center (NASA-LaRC) has developed a suite of satellite-derived cloud top products that can aid in the process of assessing these conditions.

The goal of this study is to determine the accuracy of NASA-LaRC's satellite-derived cloud product values by comparing them to the same properties measured from research aircraft. The availability of extensive research aircraft datasets from AIRS II and the NASA-LaRC Twin Otter provided direct measurements used to calculate cloud top properties for comparison against the satellite-derived cloud top properties. Cloud phase, water effective radius (r-eff), ice effective diameter (i-eff), liquid water path (LWP), and ice water path (IWP) are all evaluated. Due to the inability of satellites to see through the depth of a cloud, aircraft data from different cloud depths are compared to derived satellite values at cloud top to determine how deep into the cloud those properties are valid.