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Ten Years of Cloud Optical and Microphysical Retrievals from MODISThe MODIS cloud optical properties algorithm (MOD06/MYD06 for Terra and Aqua MODIS, respectively) has undergone extensive improvements and enhancements since the launch of Terra. These changes have included: improvements in the cloud thermodynamic phase algorithm; substantial changes in the ice cloud light scattering look up tables (LUTs); a clear-sky restoral algorithm for flagging heavy aerosol and sunglint; greatly improved spectral surface albedo maps, including the spectral albedo of snow by ecosystem; inclusion of pixel-level uncertainty estimates for cloud optical thickness, effective radius, and water path derived for three error sources that includes the sensitivity of the retrievals to solar and viewing geometries. To improve overall retrieval quality, we have also implemented cloud edge removal and partly cloudy detection (using MOD35 cloud mask 250m tests), added a supplementary cloud optical thickness and effective radius algorithm over snow and sea ice surfaces and over the ocean, which enables comparison with the "standard" 2.1 11m effective radius retrieval, and added a multi-layer cloud detection algorithm. We will discuss the status of the MOD06 algorithm and show examples of pixellevel (Level-2) cloud retrievals for selected data granules, as well as gridded (Level-3) statistics, notably monthly means and histograms (lD and 2D, with the latter giving correlations between cloud optical thickness and effective radius, and other cloud product pairs).
Document ID
20100014358
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Platnick, Steven
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
King, Michael D.
(Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Wind, Galina
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Hubanks, Paul
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Arnold, G. Thomas
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Amarasinghe, Nandana
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2010
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Meeting Information
Meeting: 2009 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
Location: San Francisco, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: December 14, 2009
End Date: December 18, 2009
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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