FORUM (Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring) has been approved to be the ninth Earth Explorer mission of the European Space Agency. The mission is scheduled for launch on a Polar satellite in the 2025–2026 time frame. The core FORUM instrument is a Fourier Transform Spectrometer measuring, with very high accuracy, the upwelling spectral radiance, from 100 to 1600 cm − 1 (from 100 to 6.25 microns in wavelength), thus covering the Far-Infrared (FIR), and a Mid-Infrared (MIR) portion of the spectrum emitted by the Earth. FORUM will fly in loose formation with the MetOp-SG-1A satellite, hosting the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer – New Generation (IASI-NG). IASI-NG will measure only the MIR part of the upwelling atmospheric spectrum, from 645 to 2760 cm − 1 (from 15.5 to 3.62 microns in wavelength), thus, the matching FORUM measurements will supply the missing FIR complement. Together, the two missions will provide, for the first time, a spectrally resolved measurement of the full Earth emitted thermal spectrum. The calibrated spectral radiance will be, on its own, the main product of the FORUM mission, however, the radiances will also be processed up to Level 2, to determine the vertical profile of water vapour, surface spectral emissivity and cloud parameters in the case of cloudy atmospheres. In this paper we assess the performance of the FORUM Level 2 products based on clear-sky simulated retrievals and we study how the FORUM and IASI-NG matching measurements can be fused in a synergistic retrieval scheme, to provide improved Level 2 products. Considering only the measurement noise and the systematic calibration error components, we find the following figures for the synergistic FORUM and IASI-NG retrieval products. In the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere region, individual water vapour profiles can be retrieved with 1 km vertical sampling and an error ranging from 10% to 15%. In the range from 300 to 600 cm − 1 , surface spectral emissivity can be retrieved with an absolute error as small as 0.001 in dry Polar atmospheres. Ice cloud parameters such as ice water path and cloud top height can be retrieved with errors smaller than 10% and 1 km, respectively, for ice water path values ranging from 0.2 to 60 g/m 2 .

Abstract. The halo ratio (HR) is a quantitative measure characterizing the occurrence of the 22• halo peak associated with cirrus. We propose to obtain it from the scattering phase function (SPF) derived from all-sky imaging. Ground based fisheye cameras are used to retrieve the SPF by implementing the necessary image transformations and corrections. These consist of geometric correction of lens distortion by utilizing positions of known stars in a camera image, transforming the images from the zenith-centred to the light-source-centred system of coordinates, correcting for the air mass and for vignetting, the 5 latter using independent measurements from a sun photometer. The SPF is then determined by averaging the image brightness over the azimuth angle and the HR by calculating the ratio of the SPF at two scattering angles in the vicinity of the 22• halo peak. In variance from previous suggestions we select these angles to be 20• and 23• , on the basis of our observations. HR time series have been obtained under various cloud conditions, including halo cirrus, non-halo cirrus and scattered cumuli.While the HR measured in this way is found to be sensitive to the halo status of cirrus, showing values typically >1 under halo 10 producing clouds, similar HR values, mostly artefacts associated with bright cloud edges, can also be occasionally observed under scattered cumuli. Given that the HR is an ice cloud characteristic, a separate cirrus detection algorithm is necessary to screen out non-ice clouds before deriving reliable HR statistics. Here we propose utilizing sky brightness temperature from infrared radiometry: both its absolute value and the magnitude of fluctuations obtained through detrended fluctuation analysis.The brightness temperature data permits the detection of cirrus in most but not all instances.

The halo ratio (HR) is a quantitative measure characterizing the occurrence of the 22 • halo peak associated with cirrus. We propose to obtain it from an approximation to the scattering phase function (SPF) derived from allsky imaging. Ground-based fisheye cameras are used to retrieve the SPF by implementing the necessary image transformations and corrections. These consist of geometric camera characterization by utilizing positions of known stars in a camera image, transforming the images from the zenithcentred to the light-source-centred system of coordinates and correcting for the air mass and for vignetting, the latter using independent measurements from a sun photometer. The SPF is then determined by averaging the image brightness over the azimuth angle and the HR by calculating the ratio of the SPF at two scattering angles in the vicinity of the 22 • halo peak. In variance from previous suggestions we select these angles to be 20 and 23 • , on the basis of our observations. HR time series have been obtained under various cloud conditions, including halo cirrus, non-halo cirrus and scattered cumuli. While the HR measured in this way is found to be sensitive to the halo status of cirrus, showing values typically > 1 under halo-producing clouds, similar HR values, mostly artefacts associated with bright cloud edges, can also be occasionally observed under scattered cumuli. Given that the HR is an ice cloud characteristic, a separate cirrus detection algorithm is necessary to screen out non-ice clouds before deriving reliable HR statistics. Here we propose utilizing sky brightness temperature from infrared radiometry: both its absolute value and the magnitude of fluctuations obtained through detrended fluctuation analysis. The brightness temperature data permit the detection of cirrus in most but not all instances.

Abstract. A method to derive the 3D cloud envelope and the cloud development velocity from high spatial and temporal resolution satellite imagery is presented. The CLOUD instrument of the recently proposed C3IEL mission lends itself well to observing at high spatial and temporal resolutions the development of convective cells. Space-borne visible cameras simultaneously image, under multiple view angles, the same surface domain, every 20 s over a time interval of 200 s. In this paper, we present a method for retrieving cloud development velocity from simulated multi-angular-high-resolution TOA radiance cloud fields. The latter are obtained via the radiative transfer model 3DMCPOL, for a deep convective cloud case generated via the atmospheric research model Meso-NH, and via the image renderer Mitsuba for a cumulus case generated via the atmospheric research model SAM. Matching cloud features are found between simulations via block matching. Image coordinates of tie points are mapped to spatial coordinates via 3D stereo reconstruction of the external cloud envelope for each acquisition. The accuracy of the retrieval of cloud topography is quantified in terms of RMSE and bias that are respectively, less than 25 m and 15 m for the horizontal components and less than 40 m and 25 m for the vertical component. The inter-acquisition 3D velocity is then derived for each pair of tie points separated by 20 s. An independent method based on optimizing the superposition of the cloud top, issued from the atmospheric research model, allows to obtain a ground estimate for the velocity from two consecutive acquisitions. The distribution of retrieved velocity and ground estimate exhibits small biases but significant discrepancy in terms of distribution width. Furthermore, the average velocities derived from the mean altitude from ground for a cluster of localized cloud features identified over several acquisitions, both in the simulated images and in the physical point cloud, are in good agreement.