Parameterizing cloud top effective radii from satellite retrieved values, accounting for vertical photon transport: quantification and correction of the resulting bias in droplet concentration and liquid water path retrievals

Grosvenor, Daniel P.; Sourdeval, Odran; Wood, Robert

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4273-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4273-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4273-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 7

Research article

|

20 Jul 2018

Research article |

| 20 Jul 2018

Parameterizing cloud top effective radii from satellite retrieved values, accounting for vertical photon transport: quantification and correction of the resulting bias in droplet concentration and liquid water path retrievals

Daniel P. Grosvenor, Odran Sourdeval, and Robert Wood

Data sets

MODIS data from Level 1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS) NASA http://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/

An Improved In Situ and Satellite SST Analysis for Climate (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/) R. W. Reynolds, N. A. Rayner, T. M. Smith, D. C. Stokes, and W. Wang https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<1609:aiisas>2.0.co;2

Short summary

We provide a parameterized correction to the retrieval of cloud effective radius from satellite instruments to account for the assumption that the retrieved value is representative of that at cloud top, whereas in reality it is representative of that lower down. The error leads to errors (which we quantify) in the retrieved cloud droplet concentrations of up to 38 % for stratocumulus regions and also to liquid water path errors, both of which can be corrected using our parameterizations.