Scientific Objectives
- To demonstrate new cloud-top products (heights, type, optical
thickness, effective droplet size), especially for cirrus and con-
trail clouds from existing and new sensors
- To compare and contrast these new cloud-top products from
three different techniques: brightness temperature (CO2 sliceing method), stereoscopy and Oxygen A-band
- To validate these cloud-top products using airborne sensor underflights, multi-resolution contemporaneous observations from space sensors and ground-based remote-sensing instruments
- To develop new products (e.g. contrail maps from visible imagery)
- To evaluate these new cloud-top products for future operational
application to weather forecasting and climate modelling
- An increase of 1% in global cloud cover is estimated to have
more than twice the effect of a doubling in CO2
- Existing cloud-top heighting techniques can reach accuracies of 0.5km only, which is insufficient to detect a global increase in cloud-top height
- Existing cloud cover products ignore much thin cirrus and broken clouds as the highest spatial resolution is only 25km
- New sensors and techniques offer the potential to improve both
the accuracy of cloud-top products, their spatial resolution and an understanding of any increase in cirrus
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Last modified: 26th August 1999