Evaluation of a method for converting Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) extinction coefficients to backscatter coefficients for intercomparison with lidar observations

Knepp, Travis N.; Thomason, Larry; Roell, Marilee; Damadeo, Robert; Leavor, Kevin; Leblanc, Thierry; Chouza, Fernando; Khaykin, Sergey; Godin-Beekmann, Sophie; Flittner, David

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-4261-2020

Articles | Volume 13, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-4261-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

New developments in atmospheric limb measurements: instruments,...

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-4261-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 8

Research article

|

13 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 13 Aug 2020

Evaluation of a method for converting Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) extinction coefficients to backscatter coefficients for intercomparison with lidar observations

Travis N. Knepp, Larry Thomason, Marilee Roell, Robert Damadeo, Kevin Leavor, Thierry Leblanc, Fernando Chouza, Sergey Khaykin, Sophie Godin-Beekmann, and David Flittner

Data sets

SAGE II and SAGE III/ISS database NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/project/SAGE III-ISS

Stratospheric aerosol database NDACC https://www.ndacc.org/

Short summary

Two common measurements that represent atmospheric aerosol loading are the backscatter and extinction coefficients. Measuring backscatter and extinction coefficients requires different viewing geometries and fundamentally different instrument systems. Further, these coefficients are not directly comparable. We present an algorithm to convert SAGE-observed extinction coefficients to backscatter coefficients for intercomparison with lidar backscatter products, followed by evaluation of the method.