Airborne and Satellite Imager Retrievals of Clouds and Above-Cloud Absorbing Aerosols during Oracles

The 2016 deployment of the NASA ObseRvations of CLouds above Aerosols and their intEractionS (ORACLES) field campaign included wide swath, high spatial resolution imagery from the Enhanced MODIS Airborne Simulator (eMAS) flown onboard the ER-2 high altitude research aircraft. eMAS, with a 37km wide swath and 50m spatial resolution from a 20km flight altitude, measures reflected solar and emitted terrestrial radiation at 38 narrowband channels covering the 0.47 – 14µm spectral range. Here we present a brief overview of the eMAS cloud retrieval science that supported ORACLES, namely the cloud products sharing heritage with the space-borne MODIS operational cloud product (MOD06). We will also present first results of the MOD06ACAERO algorithm applied to eMAS; this at present research-level algorithm provides simultaneous retrievals of above-cloud absorbing aerosol and the unbiased underlying cloud optical thickness and effective particle size from reflectances at multiple spectral channels in the visible, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared spectra. Comparisons with other ORACLES cloud and aerosol observations will be shown. Satellite observations, namely MOD06 (Terra/Aqua MODIS) and the MODIS-like SEV06 (geostationary Meteosat SEVIRI) and Terra/Aqua MOD06ACAERO, will provide context for the eMAS retrievals.