Remote sensing of cloud parameters

Day and night mapping of the global distributions of the horizontal cloud covers and the corresponding cloud-top pressure levels are derived from the same set of infrared radiance data used to retrieve clear-column temperature profiles. General formulation of the problem is presented with illustrations for the simple case of a single layer of non-reflecting clouds. Experimental verification is obtained using 15 micron data measured by the NOAA-VTPR infrared sounder. After correcting for water vapor emission, the results show that the effective cloud cover derived from 15 micron data is less than that obtained from visible data.