The Impact of Subscale Inhomogeneity on Oxygen A Band Cloud-Top Pressure Estimates: Using ESA’s MERIS as a Proxy for DSCOVR-EPIC

Remote Sensing

Rasmus Lindstrot²  Ralf Bennartz¹  Rene Preusker² 

[1] Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1225 W. Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA; E-Mail:;Institut für Weltraumwissenschaften, Freie Universität Berlin, Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 6-10, D-12165 Berlin, Germany; E-Mails:

关键词: cloud-top pressure;    Oxygen A band;    DSCOVR;    MERIS;    spatial resolution;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs4071963

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Medium Spectral Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) oxygen A band measurements were used as a proxy for the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), to be launched on NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). The high spatial resolution of MERIS (1 × 1 km²) is exploited to study the effects of subscale spatial heterogeneity of clouds on the cloud-top pressure retrieved at the coarser spatial resolution of EPIC (10 × 10 km²). In general, for a sub-scale cloud fraction less than 1, a shift of cloud-top pressure toward the middle atmosphere is found, with a low-bias for high clouds and a high-bias for low clouds. In addition, the deviation is found to be a function of surface reflectance. The subscale variability of fully clouded EPIC pixels causes a weak underestimation of cloud-top pressure, when compared to averaged high-resolution retrievals.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.