Review status: a revised version of this preprint was accepted for the journal AMT and is expected to appear here in due course.
Shortwave Radiative Effect of Arctic Low-Level Clouds: Evaluation of Imagery-Derived Irradiance with Aircraft Observations
Hong Chen1,2,Sebastian Schmidt1,2,Michael D. King2,Galina Wind3,Anthony Bucholtz4,Elizabeth A. Reid4,Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer5,6,7,William L. Smith8,Patrick C. Taylor8,Seiji Kato8,and Peter Pilewskie1,2Hong Chen et al.Hong Chen1,2,Sebastian Schmidt1,2,Michael D. King2,Galina Wind3,Anthony Bucholtz4,Elizabeth A. Reid4,Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer5,6,7,William L. Smith8,Patrick C. Taylor8,Seiji Kato8,and Peter Pilewskie1,2
Received: 13 Sep 2019 – Accepted for review: 23 Sep 2019 – Discussion started: 28 Oct 2019
Abstract. Cloud optical properties such as optical thickness along with surface albedo are important inputs for deriving the shortwave radiative effects of clouds from space-borne remote sensing. Owing to insufficient knowledge about the snow or ice surface in the Arctic, cloud detection and the retrieval products derived from passive remote sensing, such as from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), are difficult to obtain with adequate accuracy – especially for low-level thin clouds, which are ubiquitous in the Arctic. This study aims at evaluating the spectral and broadband irradiance calculated from MODIS-derived cloud properties in the Arctic using aircraft measurements collected during the Arctic Radiation-IceBridge Sea and Ice Experiment (ARISE), specifically using the upwelling and downwelling shortwave spectral and broadband irradiance measured by the Solar Spectral Flux Radiometer (SSFR) and the BroadBand Radiometer system (BBR). This entails the derivation of surface albedo from SSFR/BBR and camera imagery for heterogeneous surfaces in the marginal ice zone (MIZ), as well as subsequent measurement-model inter-comparisons in the presence of thin clouds. In addition to MODIS cloud retrievals and surface albedo from SSFR, we used temperature and humidity data from in-situ data and reanalysis (MERRA-2).
The spectral surface albedo derived from the airborne radiometers is consistent with prior ground-based measurements, and adequately represents the surface variability for the study region and time period. Somewhat surprisingly, the primary error in MODIS-derived irradiance fields for this study stems from undetected clouds, rather than from the retrieved cloud properties. In our case studies, about 22 % of clouds remained undetected (cloud optical thickness less than 0.5). The radiative effect of clouds above the detection threshold was −40 W m−2 above cloud, and −39 W m−2 below the cloud layer, and the optical thickness from the MODIS "1621" cloud product was consistent with the reflected and transmitted irradiance observations.
This study suggests that passive imagery cloud detection could be improved through a multi-pixel approach, that would make it more dependable in the Arctic. Regardless of the cloud retrieval method, there is a need for an operational imagery-based surface albedo product for the polar regions that adequately captures its temporal, spatial, and spectral variability to estimate cloud radiative effect from space-borne remote sensing.
In this paper, we accessed the shortwave irradiance derived from MODIS cloud optical properties by using aircraft measurements. We developed a data aggregation technique to parameterize spectral surface albedo by snow fraction in the Arctic. We found that undetected clouds have the most significant impact on the imagery-derived irradiance. This study suggests that passive imagery cloud detection could be improved through a multi-pixel approach, that would make it more dependable in the Arctic.
In this paper, we accessed the shortwave irradiance derived from MODIS cloud optical properties...