| 1. |
- Rydberg, Bengt, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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Non-Gaussian Bayesian retrieval of tropical upper tropospheric cloud ice and water vapour from Odin-SMR measurements
- 2009
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-1381 .- 1867-8548. ; 2:2, s. 621-637
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Improved Odin-SMR retrievals of upper troposphericwater are presented. The new retrieval algorithm retrieveshumidity and cloud ice mass simultaneously and takesinto account of cloud inhomogeneities. Both these aspectsare introduced for microwave limb sounding inversions forthe first time. A Bayesian methodology is applied allowingfor a formally correct treatment of non-unique retrievalproblems involving non-Gaussian statistics. Cloud structureinformation from CloudSat is incorporated into the retrievalalgorithm. This removes a major limitation of earlier inversionmethods where uniform cloud layers were assumedand caused a systematic retrieval error. The core part ofthe retrieval technique is the generation of a database thatmust closely represent real conditions. Good agreement withOdin-SMR observations indicates that this requirement ismet. The retrieval precision is determined to be about 5–17% RHi and 65% for humidity and cloud ice mass, respectively.For both quantities, the vertical resolution is about5 km and the best retrieval performance is found between11 and 15 km. New data show a significantly improvedagreement with CloudSat cloud ice mass retrievals, at thesame time consistency with the Aura MLS humidity resultsis maintained. The basics of the approach presented can beapplied for all passive cloud observations and should be ofbroad interest. The results can also be taken as a demonstrationof the potential of down-looking sub-mm radiometry forglobal measurements of cloud ice properties.
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| 2. |
- Rydberg, Bengt, 1979
(författare)
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Satellite microwave measurements of cloud ice properties
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Upper tropospheric cloud ice and water vapour are two intimately connected components of the atmosphere, that influence the Earth's energy budget. The response of these components to a warming climate is not well understood. Global observations are crucial for improving our understanding of the time-varying climate, but the amount and quality of such observations of cloud ice and water vapour are limited. This thesis deals with satellite microwave measurements of cloud ice properties and humidity in several ways. The retrieval performance of a proposedpassive combined millimetre and sub-millimetre wave instrument for cloud ice observation is studied. Furthermore, retrievals of cloud ice mass and humidity from Odin-SMR (Odin-Sub-Millimetre Radiometer) are presented.Additionally, Odin-SMR retrieval products are combined with correlative datasets to study diurnal variations. It is confirmed that the proposed instrument would be well suited to observe ice cloud bulk properties, such as the vertically integrated mass content and an effective cloud particle size. A novel and general retrieval methodology is developed and applied to Odin-SMR measurements of thetropical upper troposphere. The retrieval algorithm recreates vertically resolved cloud ice mass and relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi) with a precision of 65% and 5 - 17 %RHi, respectively. The retrieval algorithmtakes into account of cloud inhomogeneities by a novel usage of radar data in order to reduce the systematic retrieval uncertainty. The retrieval products are shown to be in good agreement with correlative datasets fromthe CloudSat Cloud P rofiling Radar and Aura Microwave Limb Sounder. The diurnal cycle of water in the tropical upper troposphere is studied, by combining these datasets. Strong diurnal variations of cloud ice amount were observed primarily over land regions, with a pronounced maximum inthe afternoon. It was found that climate models have a problem of correctly simulating the observed short time-scale variations.
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| 3. |
- Eriksson, Patrick, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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Diurnal variations of humidity and ice water content in the tropical upper troposphere
- 2010
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 10:23, s. 11519-11533
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Observational results of diurnal variations of humidity from Odin-SMR and AURA-MLS, and cloud ice mass from Odin-SMR and CloudSat are presented for the first time. Comparisons show that the retrievals of humidity and cloud ice from these two satellite combinations are in good agreement. The retrieved data are combined from four almost evenly distributed times of the day allowing mean values, amplitudes and phases of the diurnal variations around 200 hpa to be estimated. This analysis is applied to six climatologically distinct regions, five located in the tropics and one over the subtropical northern Pacific Ocean. The strongest diurnal cycles are found over tropical land regions, where the amplitude is ∼7 RHi for humidity and ∼50% for ice mass. The greatest ice mass for these regions is found during the afternoon, and the humidity maximum is observed to lag this peak by ∼6 h. Over tropical ocean regions the variations are smaller and the maxima in both ice mass and humidity are found during the early morning. Observed results are compared with output from three climate models (ECHAM, EC-EARTH and CAM3). Direct measurement-model comparisons were not possible because the measured and modelled cloud ice masses represent different quantities. To make a meaningful comparison, the amount of snow had to be estimated from diagnostic parameters of the models. There is a high probability that the models underestimate the average ice mass (outside the 1-σ uncertainty). The models also show clear deficiencies when it comes to amplitude and phase of the regional variations, but to varying degrees. © 2010 Author(s).
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| 4. |
- Eriksson, Patrick, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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Overview and sample applications of SMILES and Odin-SMR retrievals of upper tropospheric humidity and cloud ice mass
- 2014
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 14:23, s. 12613-12629
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Retrievals of cloud ice mass and humidity from the Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder (SMILES) and the Odin-SMR (Sub-Millimetre Radiometer) limb sounder are presented and example applications of the data are given. SMILES data give an unprecedented view of the diurnal variation of cloud ice mass. Mean regional diurnal cycles are reported and compared to some global climate models. Some improvements in the models regarding diurnal timing and relative amplitude were noted, but the models' mean ice mass around 250 hPa is still low compared to the observations. The influence of the ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) state on the upper troposphere is demonstrated using 12 years of Odin-SMR data. The same retrieval scheme is applied for both sensors, and gives low systematic differences between the two data sets. A special feature of this Bayesian retrieval scheme, of Monte Carlo integration type, is that values are produced for all measurements but for some atmospheric states retrieved values only reflect a priori assumptions. However, this "all-weather" capability allows a direct statistical comparison to model data, in contrast to many other satellite data sets. Another strength of the retrievals is the detailed treatment of "beam filling" that otherwise would cause large systematic biases for these passive cloud ice mass retrievals. The main retrieval inputs are spectra around 635/525 GHz from tangent altitudes below 8/9 km for SMILES/Odin-SMR, respectively. For both sensors, the data cover the upper troposphere between 30° S and 30° N. Humidity is reported as both relative humidity and volume mixing ratio. The vertical coverage of SMILES is restricted to a single layer, while Odin-SMR gives some profiling capability between 300 and 150 hPa. Ice mass is given as the partial ice water path above 260 hPa, but for Odin-SMR ice water content, estimates are also provided. Besides a smaller contrast between most dry and wet cases, the agreement with Aura MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder) humidity data is good. In terms of tropical mean humidity, all three data sets agree within 3.5 %RHi. Mean ice mass is about a factor of 2 lower compared to CloudSat. This deviation is caused by the fact that different particle size distributions are assumed, combined with saturation and a priori influences in the SMILES and Odin-SMR data.
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| 5. |
- Buehler, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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A concept for a satellite mission to measure cloud ice water path, ice particle size, and cloud altitude
- 2007
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Ingår i: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. - : Wiley. - 0035-9009 .- 1477-870X. ; 133:S2, s. 109-128
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A passive satellite radiometer operating at submillimetre wavelengths can measure cloud ice water path (IWP), ice particle size, and cloud altitude. The paper first discusses the scientific background for such measurements. Formal scientific mission requirements are derived, based on this background and earlier assessments. The paper then presents a comprehensive prototype instrument and mission concept, and demonstrates that it meets the requirements. The instrument is a conically scanning 12-channel radiometer with channels between 183 and 664 GHz, proposed to fly in tandem with one of the Metop satellites. It can measure IWP with a relative accuracy of approximately 20% and a detection threshold of approximately 2 g m−2. The median mass equivalent sphere diameter of the ice particles can be measured with an accuracy of approximately 30 µm, and the median IWP cloud altitude can be measured with an accuracy of approximately 300 m. All the above accuracies are median absolute error values; root mean square error values are approximately twice as high, due to rare outliers.
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| 6. |
- Eriksson, Patrick, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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Comparison between early Odin-SMR, Aura MLS and CloudSat retrievals of cloud ice mass in the upper tropical troposphere
- 2008
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 8:7, s. 1937-1948
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emerging microwave satellite techniques are expected to provide improved global measurements of cloud ice mass. CloudSat, Aura MLS and Odin-SMR fall into this category and early cloud ice retrievals from these instruments are compared. The comparison follows the SMR retrieval product and is made for partial ice water columns above 12 km. None of the retrievals shows a significant degree of false cloud detections, the ratio between local mean values from the instruments is fairly constant and a consistent view of the geographical distribution of cloud ice is obtained. However, important differences on the absolute levels exist, where the overall mean is 9.6, 4.2 and 3.7 g m−2 for CloudSat, SMR and MLS, respectively. Assumptions about the particle size distribution (PSD) are a consideration for all three instruments and constitute the dominating retrieval uncertainty for CloudSat. The mean for CloudSat when applying the same PSD as for MLS and SMR was estimated to 6.3 g m−2. A second main consideration for MLS and SMR are the effects caused by the poorer spatial resolution: a possible vertical misplacement of retrieved values and an impact of cloud inhomogeneities. The latter effect was found to be the dominating retrieval uncertainty for SMR, giving a possible mean value range of 2.3–8.9 g m−2. The comparison indicates a common retrieval accuracy in the order of 70%. Already this number should suffice for improved validations of cloud ice parametrisation schemes in atmospheric models, but a substantially better consistency between the datasets should be attainable through an increased understanding of main retrieval error sources.
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| 7. |
- Eriksson, Patrick, 1964, et al.
(författare)
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On cloud ice induced absorption and polarisation effects in microwave limb sounding
- 2011
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-1381 .- 1867-8548. ; 4:6, s. 1305-1318
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Microwave limb sounding in the presence of ice clouds was studied by detailed simulations, where clouds and other atmospheric variables varied in three dimensions and the full polarisation state was considered. Scattering particles were assumed to be horizontally aligned oblate spheroids with a size distribution parameterized in terms of temperature and ice water content. A general finding was that particle absorption is significant for limb sounding, which is in contrast to the down-looking case, where it is usually insignificant. Another general finding was that single scattering can be assumed for cloud optical paths below about 0.1, which is thus an important threshold with respect to the complexity and accuracy of retrieval algorithms. The representation of particle sizes during the retrieval is also discussed. Concerning polarisation, specific findings were as follows: Firstly, no significant degree of circular polarisation was found for the considered particle type. Secondly, for the +/- 45 degrees polarisation components, differences of up to 4 K in brightness temperature were found, but differences were much smaller when single scattering conditions applied. Thirdly, the vertically polarised component has the smallest cloud extinction. An important goal of the study was to derive recommendations for future limb sounding instruments, particularly concerning their polarisation setup. If ice water content is among the retrieval targets (and not just trace gas mixing ratios), then the simulations show that it should be best to observe any of the +/- 45 degrees and circularly polarised components. These pairs of orthogonal components also make it easier to combine information measured from different positions and with different polarisations
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| 8. |
- Holl, Gerrit, et al.
(författare)
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Collocating satellite-based radar and radiometer measurements – methodology and usage examples
- 2010
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-1381 .- 1867-8548. ; 3:3, s. 693-708
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Collocations between two satellite sensors are occasions where both sensors observe the same place at roughly the same time. We study collocations between the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) on-board NOAA-18 and the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) on-board CloudSat. First, a simple method is presented to obtain those collocations and this method is compared with a more complicated approach found in literature. We present the statistical properties of the collocations, with particular attention to the effects of the differences in footprint size. For 2007, we find approximately two and a half million MHS measurements with CPR pixels close to their centrepoints. Most of those collocations contain at least ten CloudSat pixels and image relatively homogeneous scenes. In the second part, we present three possible applications for the collocations. Firstly, we use the collocations to validate an operational Ice Water Path (IWP) product from MHS measurements, produced by the National Environment Satellite, Data and Information System (NESDIS) in the Microwave Surface and Precipitation Products System (MSPPS). IWP values from the CloudSat CPR are found to be significantly larger than those from the MSPPS. Secondly, we compare the relation between IWP and MHS channel 5 (190.311 GHz) brightness temperature for two datasets: the collocated dataset, and an artificial dataset. We find a larger variability in the collocated dataset. Finally, we use the collocations to train an Artificial Neural Network and describe how we can use it to develop a new MHS-based IWP product. We also study the effect of adding measurements from the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS), channels 8 (11.11 μm) and 11 (8.33 μm). This shows a small improvement in the retrieval quality. The collocations described in the article are available for public use.
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| 9. |
- Jiménez, C., et al.
(författare)
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Performance simulations for a submillimetre-wave satellite instrument to measure cloud ice
- 2007
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Ingår i: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. - : Wiley. - 0035-9009 .- 1477-870X. ; 133:S2, s. 129-149
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The performance of a conically scanning satellite instrument for the measurement of cloud ice was studied. The instrument measures radiances in 12 channels placed around the 183, 325 and 448 GHz water vapour lines and the 243, 664 and 874 GHz window channels, and is designed to provide estimations of ice water path (IWP), the equivalent sphere diameter (DME), and the median ice mass height (ZME). Overall median relative errors of around 20% for IWP, 33 µm for DME, and 240 m for ZME for a midlatitude winter scenario, and 17% for IWP, 30 µm for DME, and 310 m for ZME for a tropical scenario were found. Detection limits (relative retrieval error reaching 100%) of around 2 gm−2 were estimated for both scenarios. The performance of a five-receiver instrument, where either the 664 or 874 GHz channel is dropped, was close, but with increased errors for very thin and high clouds. A trade-off between having the 874 GHz receiver or two infrared channels at 10.7 and 12 µm emerged, as very similar performance was found between the six-receiver instrument and the five-receiver instrument with the infrared channels. Another trade-off between receiver selection and noise was also apparent, with some of the four-receiver selections operating at half noise levels being able to compete with the standard six-receiver instrument. Dual-polarized measurements were also tested, but they did not significantly improve the retrievals of IWP or DME.
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| 10. |
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