Articles | Volume 13, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3909-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3909-2020
Research article
 | 
21 Jul 2020
Research article |  | 21 Jul 2020

Using two-stream theory to capture fluctuations of satellite-perceived TOA SW radiances reflected from clouds over ocean

Florian Tornow, Carlos Domenech, Howard W. Barker, René Preusker, and Jürgen Fischer

Data sets

CERES Data Products NASA Langley Research Center https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/data/

ERA-20C Daily Dataset European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/era20c-daily

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Short summary
Clouds reflect sunlight unevenly, which makes it difficult to quantify the portion reflected back to space via satellite observation. To improve quantification, we propose a new statistical model that incorporates more satellite-inferred cloud and atmospheric properties than state-of-the-art models. We use concepts from radiative transfer theory that we statistically optimize to fit observations. The new model often explains past satellite observations better and predicts reflection plausibly.