On the radiative properties of ice clouds: Light scattering, remote sensing, and radiation parameterization

Yang, Ping; Liou, Kuo‐Nan; Bi, Lei; Liu, Chao; Yi, Bingqi; Baum, Bryan A.

doi:10.1007/s00376-014-0011-z

Cited by 158 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 230 publications

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“…The radiative properties of cirrus clouds are governed not only by their optical thickness (COT) and ice crystal effective radius but also depend crucially on the ice crystal shape and orientation (Yi et al, 2013;Wendisch et al, 2007). Better knowledge of shape, surface roughness and orientation of ice crystals in cirrus clouds would therefore help to improve estimates of the radiative forcing of cirrus clouds as well as satellite retrievals of cirrus optical properties as discussed by Yang et al (2015) and references therein.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ice crystal characterization in cirrus clouds: a sun-tracking camera system and automated detection algorithm for halo displays

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Halo displays in the sky contain valuable information about ice crystal shape and orientation: e.g., the 22 • halo is produced by randomly oriented hexagonal prisms while parhelia (sundogs) indicate oriented plates. HaloCam, a novel sun-tracking camera system for the automated observation of halo displays is presented. An initial visual evaluation of the frequency of halo displays for the ACCEPT (Analysis of the Composition of Clouds with Extended Polarization Techniques) field campaign from October to midNovember 2014 showed that sundogs were observed more often than 22 • halos. Thus, the majority of halo displays was produced by oriented ice crystals. During the campaign about 27 % of the cirrus clouds produced 22 • halos, sundogs or upper tangent arcs. To evaluate the HaloCam observations collected from regular measurements in Munich between January 2014 and June 2016, an automated detection algorithm for 22 • halos was developed, which can be extended to other halo types as well. This algorithm detected 22 • halos about 2 % of the time for this dataset. The frequency of cirrus clouds during this time period was estimated by colocated ceilometer measurements using temperature thresholds of the cloud base. About 25 % of the detected cirrus clouds occurred together with a 22 • halo, which implies that these clouds contained a certain fraction of smooth, hexagonal ice crystals. HaloCam observations complemented by radiative transfer simulations and measurements of aerosol and cirrus cloud optical thickness (AOT and COT) provide a possibility to retrieve more detailed information about ice crystal roughness. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of a completely automated method to collect and evaluate a long-term database of halo observations and shows the potential to characterize ice crystal properties.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ice crystal characterization in cirrus clouds: a sun-tracking camera system and automated detection algorithm for halo displays

et al. 2017

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“…This is because they consist of ice particles with various microphysical characteristics, e.g. a wide range of habits and sizes Forster et al, 2007;Baran et al, 2007;Cole et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2015). Different ice particle habits have varying single-scattering characteristics, resulting in different radiative properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of ice particle habits to be used for ice cloud remote sensing for the GCOM-C satellite mission

et al. 2016

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Abstract. In this study, various ice particle habits are investigated in conjunction with inferring the optical properties of ice clouds for use in the Global Change Observation Mission-Climate (GCOM-C) satellite programme. We develop a database of the single-scattering properties of five ice habit models: plates, columns, droxtals, bullet rosettes, and Voronoi. The database is based on the specification of the Second Generation Global Imager (SGLI) sensor on board the GCOM-C satellite, which is scheduled to be launched in 2017 by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. A combination of the finite-difference time-domain method, the geometric optics integral equation technique, and the geometric optics method is applied to compute the single-scattering properties of the selected ice particle habits at 36 wavelengths, from the visible to the infrared spectral regions. This covers the SGLI channels for the size parameter, which is defined as a single-particle radius of an equivalent volume sphere, ranging between 6 and 9000 µm. The database includes the extinction efficiency, absorption efficiency, average geometrical cross section, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry factor, size parameter of a volume-equivalent sphere, maximum distance from the centre of mass, particle volume, and six nonzero elements of the scattering phase matrix. The characteristics of calculated extinction efficiency, single-scattering albedo, and asymmetry factor of the five ice particle habits are compared. Furthermore, sizeintegrated bulk scattering properties for the five ice particle habit models are calculated from the single-scattering database and microphysical data. Using the five ice particle habit models, the optical thickness and spherical albedo of ice clouds are retrieved from the Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances-3 (POLDER-3) measurements, recorded on board the Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar (PARASOL) satellite. The optimal ice particle habit for retrieving the SGLI ice cloud properties is investigated by adopting the spherical albedo difference (SAD) method. It is found that the SAD is distributed stably due to the scattering angle increases for bullet rosettes with an effective diameter (D eff ) of 10 µm and Voronoi particles with D eff values of 10, 60, and 100 µm. It is confirmed that the SAD of small bullet-rosette particles and all sizes of Voronoi particles has a low angular dependence, indicating that a combination of the bullet-rosette and Voronoi models is sufficient for retrieval of the ice cloud's spherical albedo and optical thickness as effective habit models for the SGLI Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 12288H. Letu et al.: Investigation of ice particle habits to be used for ice cloud remote sensing sensor. Finally, SAD analysis based on the Voronoi habit model with moderate particle size (D eff = 60 µm) is compared with the conventional general habit mixture mode...

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“…The difference in reflected shortwave flux is at most about 7 W m 22 , assuming an area-averaged incident solar flux of 330 W m 22 , at least for the case considered here. These differences found for the g parameterizations are far less than the range in g found by several studies (Ulanowski et al 2006;Fu 2007;Garrett 2008;Baran 2012;van Diedenhoven et al 2014;Yang et al 2015). Indeed, in the case of Ulanowski et al (2006), experimentally derived g values were found to vary between 0.80 6 0.04 and 0.63 6 0.05 for smooth and rough ice analog rosettes, respectively, and this difference results in a shortwave flux uncertainty of about 256 W m 22 .…”

Section: The Parameterizationmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…Typical TTL cirrus will efficiently trap outgoing longwave radiation from the surface and atmosphere, generally leading to a warming of the surface, and absorb incoming shortwave radiation at near-infrared wavelengths, generally leading to a local heating of the upper troposphere (Liou 1986;Liou 2005;Edwards et al 2007;Baran 2009;Taylor et al 2011;Baran 2012;Yi et al 2013;Zhou et al 2014;Hong and Liu 2015;Yang et al 2015;Hardiman et al 2015). The balance between cirrus warming or cooling the upper troposphere depends on its visible optical depth, as shown by Hong and Liu (2015), who demonstrated that cirrus with visible optical depths less than unity leads to a net heating of the upper troposphere, while optically thicker cirrus results in a net cooling of the upper troposphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In general, the role of cirrus in either heating or cooling the TTL depends not only on the visible optical depth but also on the microphysics and the scattering and absorption properties of atmospheric ice (Baran et al 2014a, hereinafter B014a;Yang et al 2015, and references therein). There have been aircraft campaigns that have examined the ice microphysics composition of the TTL.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Two Coupled Cirrus Microphysics–Radiation Parameterizations on the Temperature and Specific Humidity Biases in the Tropical Tropopause Layer in a Climate Model

et al. 2016

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The impact of two different coupled cirrus microphysics-radiation parameterizations on the zonally averaged temperature and humidity biases in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) of a Met Office climate model configuration is assessed. One parameterization is based on a linear coupling between a model prognostic variable, the ice mass mixing ratio q i , and the integral optical properties. The second is based on the integral optical properties being parameterized as functions of q i and temperature, T c , where the mass coefficients (i.e., scattering and extinction) are parameterized as nonlinear functions of the ratio between q i and T c . The cirrus microphysics parameterization is based on a moment estimation parameterization of the particle size distribution (PSD), which relates the mass moment (i.e., second moment if mass is proportional to size raised to the power of 2) of the PSD to all other PSD moments through the magnitude of the second moment and T c . This same microphysics PSD parameterization is applied to calculate the integral optical properties used in both radiation parameterizations and, thus, ensures PSD and mass consistency between the cirrus microphysics and radiation schemes. In this paper, the temperature-nondependent and temperature-dependent parameterizations are shown to increase and decrease the zonally averaged temperature biases in the TTL by about 1 K, respectively. The temperature-dependent radiation parameterization is further demonstrated to have a positive impact on the specific humidity biases in the TTL, as well as decreasing the shortwave and longwave biases in the cloudy radiative effect. The temperature-dependent radiation parameterization is shown to be more consistent with TTL and global radiation observations.

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On the radiative properties of ice clouds: Light scattering, remote sensing, and radiation parameterization

Cited by 158 publications

References 230 publications

Ice crystal characterization in cirrus clouds: a sun-tracking camera system and automated detection algorithm for halo displays

Ice crystal characterization in cirrus clouds: a sun-tracking camera system and automated detection algorithm for halo displays

Investigation of ice particle habits to be used for ice cloud remote sensing for the GCOM-C satellite mission

The Impact of Two Coupled Cirrus Microphysics–Radiation Parameterizations on the Temperature and Specific Humidity Biases in the Tropical Tropopause Layer in a Climate Model

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