Abstract
We investigate the effect of cloud contamination and 3-D radiative transfer effects on aerosol retrievals from multiangle photopolarimetric measurements in the vicinity of clouds. To this end multiangle, multiwavelength photopolarimetric observations are simulated using a 3-D radiative transfer model for scenes with realistic cloud properties, based on a large eddy simulation. Spatial resolutions of 2 x 2, 4 x 4, and 6 x 6 km(2) have been considered. It is found that a goodness-of-fit criterion efficiently filters out cloud contamination. However, it does not filter out all scenes that are affected by 3-D radiative effects, resulting in small biases in the retrieved aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and single-scattering albedo (SSA). We also found that measurements at higher spatial resolution (2 x 2 km(2)) do not result in retrievals closer to clouds compared to measurements at coarser spatial resolutions (4 x 4 and 6 x 6 km(2)). If cloud parameters are fitted simultaneously with aerosol parameters using a 1-D radiative transfer model and the Independent Pixel Approximation, more successful retrievals are obtained in partially cloudy scenes and in the vicinity of clouds. This effect is most apparent at 6 x 6 km(2) and only marginal at 2 x 2 km(2) resolution. The retrieved aerosol AOT and SSA from the simultaneous aerosol and cloud retrievals still have a small bias, like the aerosol-only retrievals. We conclude that in order to substantially improve aerosol retrievals in the vicinity of clouds, a retrieval algorithm is needed that takes into account 3-D radiative transfer effects.
Dokumententyp: | Zeitschriftenartikel |
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Fakultät: | Physik |
Themengebiete: | 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik |
ISSN: | 2169-897X |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Dokumenten ID: | 47490 |
Datum der Veröffentlichung auf Open Access LMU: | 27. Apr. 2018, 08:13 |
Letzte Änderungen: | 08. Mai 2024, 09:24 |