Universität zu Köln

Muelmenstaedt, Johannes ORCID: 0000-0003-1105-6678, Sourdeval, Odran ORCID: 0000-0002-2822-5303, Henderson, David S., L'Ecuyer, Tristan S., Unglaub, Claudia, Jungandreas, Leonore, Boehm, Christoph, Russell, Lynn M. and Quaas, Johannes ORCID: 0000-0001-7057-194X (2018). Using CALIOP to estimate cloud-field base height and its uncertainty: the Cloud Base Altitude Spatial Extrapolator (CBASE) algorithm and datasety. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 10 (4). S. 2279 - 2294. GOTTINGEN: COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH. ISSN 1866-3516

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Abstract

A technique is presented that uses attenuated backscatter profiles from the CALIOP satellite lidar to estimate cloud base heights of lower-troposphere liquid clouds (cloud base height below approximately 3 km). Even when clouds are thick enough to attenuate the lidar beam (optical thickness tau greater than or similar to 5), the technique provides cloud base heights by treating the cloud base height of nearby thinner clouds as representative of the surrounding cloud field. Using ground-based ceilometer data, uncertainty estimates for the cloud base height product at retrieval resolution are derived as a function of various properties of the CALIOP lidar profiles. Evaluation of the predicted cloud base heights and their predicted uncertainty using a second statistically independent ceilometer dataset shows that cloud base heights and uncertainties are biased by less than 10 %. Geographic distributions of cloud base height and its uncertainty are presented. In some regions, the uncertainty is found to be substantially smaller than the 480 m uncertainty assumed in the A-Train surface downwelling longwave estimate, potentially permitting the most uncertain of the radiative fluxes in the climate system to be better constrained.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Muelmenstaedt, Johannes UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-1105-6678 UNSPECIFIED Sourdeval, Odran UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-2822-5303 UNSPECIFIED Henderson, David S. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED L'Ecuyer, Tristan S. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Unglaub, Claudia UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Jungandreas, Leonore UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Boehm, Christoph UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Russell, Lynn M. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Quaas, Johannes UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0001-7057-194X UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-162060
DOI:	10.5194/essd-10-2279-2018
Journal or Publication Title:	Earth Syst. Sci. Data
Volume:	10
Number:	4
Page Range:	S. 2279 - 2294
Date:	2018
Publisher:	COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
Place of Publication:	GOTTINGEN
ISSN:	1866-3516
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences > Department of Geosciences > Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language ORBIT PERFORMANCE; RADAR; MODIS; MISR; ASSIMILATION; RETRIEVAL; PRODUCTS; SURFACE Multiple languages Geosciences, Multidisciplinary; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/16206