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Cloud‐fraction‐dependent bias in satellite liquid water path retrievals of shallow, non‐precipitating marine clouds
Author(s) -
Horváth Ákos,
Gentemann Chelle
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl030625
Subject(s) - liquid water path , overcast , microwave , environmental science , cloud fraction , satellite , remote sensing , cloud computing , atmospheric sciences , cloud cover , meteorology , geology , physics , astronomy , sky , quantum mechanics , computer science , operating system
This study compares Wentz microwave liquid water path retrievals with MODIS and MISR optical estimates in shallow, non‐precipitating marine clouds. In overcast conditions, the microwave and optical estimates are comparable; however, as cloud fraction decreases microwave retrievals strongly and increasingly overestimate optical ones. This positive microwave bias cannot be explained neither by the elimination of negative values in the operational Wentz dataset, nor by the somewhat reduced sensitivity of MODIS cloud detection to small clouds.