Cloud top heights and aerosol layer properties from EarthCARE lidar observations: the A-CTH and A-ALD products

Wandinger, Ulla; Haarig, Moritz; Baars, Holger; Donovan, D. P.; Zadelhoff, Gerd-Jan van

doi:10.5194/egusphere-2023-748

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The passive instrument, the multi-spectral imager (MSI), gives horizontal context to the observed scene (Wandinger et al, 2023;Docter et al, 2023;Hünerbein et al, 2023b, a;Haarig et al, 2023) and is used to create 3D scenes (Qu et al, 2023). The 3D information of the atmosphere based on measurements of these instruments (Mason et al, 2023) will be used as input for 1D and 3D-radiative transfer calculations (Cole et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrieval of top-of-atmosphere fluxes from combined EarthCARE LiDAR, imager and broadband radiometer observations: the BMA-FLX product

Velázquez Blázquez,

Domenech,

Baudrez

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Abstract. The Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite mission is expected to provide new insights into aerosols, clouds, and radiation. The satellite’s payload include four instruments design to synergistically retrieve vertical profiles of clouds and aerosols, along with the atmospheric radiation data. This will enable the determination of atmospheric heating rates and top-of-atmosphere radiances and fluxes. This paper focuses on the BMA-FLX processor, an algorithm specifically created, developed, and validated to retrieve thermal and solar top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes from longwave and shortwave radiances, measured along-track by the EarthCARE Broadband Radiometer (BBR) instrument. These measurements are co-registered either at the surface or at the radiatively most significant vertical layer of the atmosphere in cloudy condition (reference level). The Multi-Spectral Imager (MSI) and Atmospheric LiDAR (ATLID) on-board EarthCARE support cloud identification, while meteorological data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts provide the surface and atmospheric necessary information. In the BMA-FLX processor, flux is estimated independently for each BBR view using different approaches for the longwave and shortwave radiances. A combined flux, derived from co-registered radiances at the reference level, is provided as the best estimate for a given scene. The radiance-to-flux conversion algorithms have been successfully validated through end-to-end verification using L1 and L2 synthetic data for three EarthCARE orbits. The BMA-FLX’s objective is to achieve radiative closure for EarthCARE with solar and thermal fluxes within 10 Wm−2.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrieval of top-of-atmosphere fluxes from combined EarthCARE LiDAR, imager and broadband radiometer observations: the BMA-FLX product

Velázquez Blázquez,

Domenech,

Baudrez

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Each sensor development organization (JAXA and NICT for CPR, and ESA for others) generates the L1 product, and the L2 product is generated by individual agencies. For example, L2 products using ATLID, such as layer identifiers, particle (aerosol, cloud) type identifiers, and optical properties, such as extinction coefficient, backscatter coefficient, and depolarization ratio, and cloud top height, are estimated from the ESA (Irbah et al 2023;Donovan et al 2023a,b;Wandinger et al 2023). Synergy products are also generated by combining L1 data from the other instruments.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithm to retrieve aerosol optical properties using lidar measurements on board the EarthCARE satellite

Nishizawa,

Kudo,

Oikawa

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Abstract. Algorithms were developed to produce ATLID (Atmospheric Lidar) L2 aerosol products using ATLID L1 data. The algorithms estimated the following four products: (1) Layer identifiers such as aerosols, clouds, clear-skies, or surfaces (feature masks) were estimated by the combined use of vertically variable criteria and spatial continuity methods developed for the CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) analysis. (2) Aerosol optical properties such as extinction coefficient, backscatter coefficient, depolarization ratio, and lidar ratio at 355 nm were estimated by our developed optimization method using the Gauss-Newton method combined with the line search method developed for ground-based measurements. (3) Six aerosol types, namely smoke, pollution, marine, pristine, dusty-mixture, and dust were identified based on a two-dimensional diagram of the lidar ratio and depolarization ratio at 355 nm developed by cluster-analysis using the AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) dataset with ground-based lidar data. (4) The planetary boundary layer height was determined using the improved wavelet covariance transform method for the ATLID analysis. We evaluated the algorithm’s performance using simulated ATLID L1 data generated by Joint-Simulator (Joint Simulator for Satellite Sensors), incorporating aerosol and cloud distributions from numerical models. Results from applying the algorithms to the simulated ATLID L1 data with realistic signal noise added for aerosol or cloud predominant cases revealed: (1) misidentification of aerosol and cloud layers by the feature mask algorithm was relatively low, approximately 10 %; (2) the retrieval errors of aerosol optical properties were 0.08 × 10-7 ± 1.12 × 10-7 m-1sr-1 (2 ± 34 % in relative error) for backscatter coefficient and 0.01 ± 0.07 (4 ± 27 %) for depolarization ratio; (3) aerosol type classification was generally performed well, with a 37 % of misclassification for dust. These results indicate that the algorithm’s capability to provide valuable insights into the global distribution of aerosols and clouds, facilitating assessments of their climate impact through atmospheric radiation processes.

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HETEAC – the Hybrid End-To-End Aerosol Classification model for EarthCARE

Wandinger¹,

Floutsi²,

Baars³

et al. 2023

Atmos. Meas. Tech.

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Abstract. The Hybrid End-To-End Aerosol Classification (HETEAC) model for the Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission is introduced. The model serves as the common baseline for the development, evaluation, and implementation of EarthCARE algorithms. It guarantees the consistency of different aerosol products from the multi-instrument platform and facilitates the conformity of broad-band optical properties needed for EarthCARE radiative-closure assessments. While the hybrid approach ensures that the theoretical description of aerosol microphysical properties is consistent with the optical properties of the measured aerosol types, the end-to-end model permits the uniform representation of aerosol types in terms of microphysical, optical, and radiative properties. Four basic aerosol components with prescribed microphysical properties are used to compose various natural and anthropogenic aerosols of the troposphere. The components contain weakly and strongly absorbing fine-mode and spherical and non-spherical coarse-mode particles and thus are representative for pollution, smoke, sea salt, and dust, respectively. Their microphysical properties are selected such that good coverage of the observational phase space of intensive, i.e., concentration-independent, optical aerosol properties derived from EarthCARE measurements is obtained. Mixing rules to calculate optical and radiative properties of any aerosol blend composed of the four basic components are provided. Applications of HETEAC in the generation of test scenes, the development of retrieval algorithms for stand-alone and synergistic aerosol products from EarthCARE's atmospheric lidar (ATLID) and multi-spectral imager (MSI), and for radiative-closure assessments are introduced. Finally, the implications of simplifying model assumptions and possible improvements are discussed, and conclusions for future validation and development work are drawn.

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Cloud top heights and aerosol layer properties from EarthCARE lidar observations: the A-CTH and A-ALD products

Cited by 4 publications

References 41 publications

Retrieval of top-of-atmosphere fluxes from combined EarthCARE LiDAR, imager and broadband radiometer observations: the BMA-FLX product

Retrieval of top-of-atmosphere fluxes from combined EarthCARE LiDAR, imager and broadband radiometer observations: the BMA-FLX product

Algorithm to retrieve aerosol optical properties using lidar measurements on board the EarthCARE satellite

HETEAC – the Hybrid End-To-End Aerosol Classification model for EarthCARE

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