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Sensitivities in Satellite Lidar‐Derived Estimates of Daytime Top‐of‐the‐Atmosphere Optically Thin Cirrus Cloud Radiative Forcing: A Case Study
Author(s) -
Dolinar Erica K.,
Campbell James R.,
Lolli Simone,
Ozog Scott C.,
Yorks John E.,
Camacho Christopher,
Gu Yu,
Bucholtz Anthony,
McGill Matthew J.
Publication year - 2020
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 - 10.1029/2020gl088871
Subject(s) - cirrus , lidar , environmental science , atmosphere (unit) , cloud height , cloud top , radiative forcing , atmospheric sciences , satellite , radiative transfer , forcing (mathematics) , meteorology , optical depth , extinction (optical mineralogy) , nadir , cloud forcing , cloud computing , remote sensing , aerosol , cloud cover , physics , geology , optics , astronomy , computer science , operating system
An optically thin cirrus cloud was profiled concurrently with nadir‐pointing 1,064 nm lidars on 11 August 2017 over eastern Texas, including NASA's airborne Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) and space‐borne Clouds and Aerosol Transport System (CATS) instruments. Despite resolving fewer (37% vs. 94%) and denser (i.e., more emissive) clouds (average cloud optical depth of 0.10 vs. 0.03, respectively), CATS data render a near‐equal estimate of the top‐of‐atmosphere (TOA) net cloud radiative forcing (CRF) versus CPL. The sample‐relative TOA net CRF solved from CPL is 1.39 W/m 2 , which becomes 1.32 W/m 2 after normalizing by occurrence frequency. Since CATS overestimates extinction for this case, the sample‐relative TOA net forcing is ~3.0 W/m 2 larger than CPL, with the absolute value reduced to within 0.3 W/m 2 of CPL due its underestimation of cloud occurrence. We discuss the ramifications of thin cirrus cloud detectability from satellite and its impact on attempts at TOA CRF closure.