Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
AMT
Articles | Volume 18, issue 15
Articles | Volume 18, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3819-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3819-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 18, issue 15
Research article
 | 
13 Aug 2025
Research article |  | 13 Aug 2025

Aircraft evaluation of MODIS cloud drop number concentration retrievals

Scarlet R. Passer, Mikael K. Witte, and Patrick Y. Chuang

Related authors

Airborne measurements from the Southern California Investigation of Low cloud and Land Aerosol (SCILLA)
Mikael Witte, Roya Bahreini, Sierra Bollinger, Anthony Bucholtz, Patrick Chuang, Don Collins, Minghao Han, Mason Leandro, Alexander MacDonald, Andrew Metcalf, Bradley Ries, Nimya Sunil, Dongli Wang, and Lisa Welp
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-593,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-593, 2026
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
AERO-MAP: a data compilation and modeling approach to understand spatial variability in fine- and coarse-mode aerosol composition
Natalie M. Mahowald, Longlei Li, Julius Vira, Marje Prank, Douglas S. Hamilton, Hitoshi Matsui, Ron L. Miller, P. Louis Lu, Ezgi Akyuz, Daphne Meidan, Peter Hess, Heikki Lihavainen, Christine Wiedinmyer, Jenny Hand, Maria Grazia Alaimo, Célia Alves, Andres Alastuey, Paulo Artaxo, Africa Barreto, Francisco Barraza, Silvia Becagli, Giulia Calzolai, Shankararaman Chellam, Ying Chen, Patrick Chuang, David D. Cohen, Cristina Colombi, Evangelia Diapouli, Gaetano Dongarra, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, Johann Engelbrecht, Corinne Galy-Lacaux, Cassandra Gaston, Dario Gomez, Yenny González Ramos, Roy M. Harrison, Chris Heyes, Barak Herut, Philip Hopke, Christoph Hüglin, Maria Kanakidou, Zsofia Kertesz, Zbigniew Klimont, Katriina Kyllönen, Fabrice Lambert, Xiaohong Liu, Remi Losno, Franco Lucarelli, Willy Maenhaut, Beatrice Marticorena, Randall V. Martin, Nikolaos Mihalopoulos, Yasser Morera-Gómez, Adina Paytan, Joseph Prospero, Sergio Rodríguez, Patricia Smichowski, Daniela Varrica, Brenna Walsh, Crystal L. Weagle, and Xi Zhao
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 4665–4702, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4665-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4665-2025, 2025
Short summary
Evaluating spectral cloud effective radius retrievals from the Enhanced MODIS Airborne Simulator (eMAS) during ORACLES
Kerry Meyer, Steven Platnick, G. Thomas Arnold, Nandana Amarasinghe, Daniel Miller, Jennifer Small-Griswold, Mikael Witte, Brian Cairns, Siddhant Gupta, Greg McFarquhar, and Joseph O'Brien
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 981–1011, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-981-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-981-2025, 2025
Short summary
A climatology of cold pools distinct from background turbulence at the Eastern North Atlantic observations site
Mark A. Smalley, Mikael K. Witte, Jong-Hoon Jeong, and Maria J. Chinita
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1098,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1098, 2024
Preprint archived
Short summary
AERO-MAP: A data compilation and modelling approach to understand the fine and coarse mode aerosol composition
Natalie M. Mahowald, Longlei Li, Julius Vira, Marje Prank, Douglas S. Hamilton, Hitoshi Matsui, Ron L. Miller, Louis Lu, Ezgi Akyuz, Daphne Meidan, Peter Hess, Heikki Lihavainen, Christine Wiedinmyer, Jenny Hand, Maria Grazia Alaimo, Célia Alves, Andres Alastuey, Paulo Artaxo, Africa Barreto, Francisco Barraza, Silvia Becagli, Giulia Calzolai, Shankarararman Chellam, Ying Chen, Patrick Chuang, David D. Cohen, Cristina Colombi, Evangelia Diapouli, Gaetano Dongarra, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, Corinne Galy-Lacaux, Cassandra Gaston, Dario Gomez, Yenny González Ramos, Hannele Hakola, Roy M. Harrison, Chris Heyes, Barak Herut, Philip Hopke, Christoph Hüglin, Maria Kanakidou, Zsofia Kertesz, Zbiginiw Klimont, Katriina Kyllönen, Fabrice Lambert, Xiaohong Liu, Remi Losno, Franco Lucarelli, Willy Maenhaut, Beatrice Marticorena, Randall V. Martin, Nikolaos Mihalopoulos, Yasser Morera-Gomez, Adina Paytan, Joseph Prospero, Sergio Rodríguez, Patricia Smichowski, Daniela Varrica, Brenna Walsh, Crystal Weagle, and Xi Zhao
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-1,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-1, 2024
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
More articles (5)

Cited articles

Bellouin, N., Quaas, J., Gryspeerdt, E., Kinne, S., Stier, P., Watson-Parris, D., Boucher, O., Carslaw, K. S., Christensen, M., Daniau, A.-L., Dufresne, J.-L., Feingold, G., Fiedler, S., Forster, P., Gettelman, A., Haywood, J. M., Lohmann, U., Malavelle, F., Mauritsen, T., McCoy, D. T., Myhre, G., Mülmenstädt, J., Neubauer, D., Possner, A., Rugenstein, M., Sato, Y., Schulz, M., Schwartz, S. E., Sourdeval, O., Storelvmo, T., Toll, V., Winker, D., and Stevens, B.: Bounding Global Aerosol Radiative Forcing of Climate Change, Rev. Geophys., 58, e2019RG000660, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019RG000660, 2020. a
Bennartz, R.: Global assessment of marine boundary layer cloud droplet number concentration from satellite, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 112, D02201, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007547, 2007. a, b, c, d
Bennartz, R. and Rausch, J.: Global and regional estimates of warm cloud droplet number concentration based on 13 years of AQUA-MODIS observations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 9815–9836, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-9815-2017, 2017. a
Carman, J. K., Rossiter, D. L., Khelif, D., Jonsson, H. H., Faloona, I. C., and Chuang, P. Y.: Observational constraints on entrainment and the entrainment interface layer in stratocumulus, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 11135–11152, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-11135-2012, 2012. a, b
Christensen, M. W., Gettelman, A., Cermak, J., Dagan, G., Diamond, M., Douglas, A., Feingold, G., Glassmeier, F., Goren, T., Grosvenor, D. P., Gryspeerdt, E., Kahn, R., Li, Z., Ma, P.-L., Malavelle, F., McCoy, I. L., McCoy, D. T., McFarquhar, G., Mülmenstädt, J., Pal, S., Possner, A., Povey, A., Quaas, J., Rosenfeld, D., Schmidt, A., Schrödner, R., Sorooshian, A., Stier, P., Toll, V., Watson-Parris, D., Wood, R., Yang, M., and Yuan, T.: Opportunistic experiments to constrain aerosol effective radiative forcing, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 641–674, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-641-2022, 2022. a
More articles (27)
Download
Short summary
One important property of a cloud is the concentration of cloud drops. This property is relevant to how the cloud interacts with sunlight and how easily the cloud forms precipitation. Measuring this property from satellite observations is one important source of data, but it does require making some assumptions. This study evaluates the accuracy of satellite-derived drop concentration by a comparison with aircraft measurements.
Read more
Share