Validation of Community Radiative Transfer Model through hyperspectral Infrared brightness temperature comparison over thin cirrus cloud region

Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) at the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) is one of the key efforts to make successful assimilation of satellite observation data into Numerical weather prediction (NWP).

The current version of CRTM covers infrared and microwave band regions. Chen et al. (2008, JGR) compared the observed brightness temperature from satellite instruments onboard NOAA 18 to the simulated brightness temperature using CRTM with CloudSat products. Their study included Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSUA), Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) in microwave band region, and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3 (AVHRR/3) in infrared band region.

This study is a research following Chen et al. (2008, JGR) to validate CRTM performance for specific cloud type (thin cirrus cloud) at hyperspectral infrared bands as part of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R Series (GOES-R) research for verifying Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) simulated proxy data sets for GOES-R Algorithm Working Group (AWG) Activities

In this study, several thin cirrus cloud regions (homogeneously spreaded over ocean) are selected according to CloudSat profiles over AIRS, MODIS granules since CloudSat comprises A-train with Aqua. With the CloudSat products such as temperature, water vapor, pressure vertical profiles from collocated ECMWF data, water content values from 2B-CWC-RO, and etc, brightness temperature will be simulated using CRTM at hyperspectral bands corresponding AIRS channels over the selected regions and will be compared with the brightness temperature observed by AIRS onboard AQUA.