89th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting

Monday, 12 January 2009
Comparison of cloud properties derived from MSG SEVIRI and ARM Mobile Facility observations
Hall 5 (Phoenix Convention Center)
J. Kirk Ayers, SSAI, Hampton, VA; and P. Minnis, R. Palikonda, C. R. Yost, D. A. Spangenberg, F. L. Chang, and L. Nguyen
NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) has provided near real-time Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellite-derived cloud and radiation datasets covering the central United States for several years. More recently these retrievals have been expanded to cover a wider variety of locations and satellites. A particular focus of this expanded effort is the analysis Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) data on a 3-hourly global basis as well as hourly analysis of portions of Europe and Northern Africa. This study utilizes the Visible Infrared Solar-infrared Split-window Technique (VISST) Solar Infrared Split-Window Technique (SIST) to determine cloud properties. These techniques are multi-channel model-matching methods for plane parallel clouds augmented by CO2-slicing techniques that improve cloud property calculation and identification of multilayer cloud systems. Satellite measurements of cloud properties and the radiation budget are essential for understanding meso- and large-scale processes that drive climate variability. Remote sensing from satellites can provide a wealth of information about clouds and radiation, but it is vital that these remotely sensed parameters be validated by in-situ or other active observations. The deployment of the ARM Mobile Facility to Niamey Niger and to the Black Forest in Germany provided an excellent opportunity to compare satellite and surface derived cloud properties. This study will compare satellite-derived cloud properties with WACR-ARSCL cloud boundaries and with cloud liquid water path information derived from microwave radiometer (MWR) observations.

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