Retrieval of Cirrus Cloud Optical Depth under Day and Night Conditions from MODIS Collection 6 Cloud Property Data

This paper presents a technique to generate cirrus optical depth and particle effective size estimates from the cloud emissivities at 8.5, 11 and 12 μm contained in the Collection-6 (C6) MYD06 cloud product. This technique employs the latest scattering models and scattering radiative transfer approximations to estimate cloud optical depth and particle effective size using efficient analytical formulae. Two scattering models are tested. The first is the same scattering model as that used in the C6 MYD06 solar reflectance products. The second model is an empirical model derived from radiometric consistency. Both models are shown to generate optical depths that compare well to those from constrained CALIPSO retrievals and MYD06. In terms of effective radius retrievals, the results from the radiometric empirical model agree more closely with MYD06 than those from the C6 model. This analysis is applied to AQUA/MODIS data collocated with CALIPSO/CALIOP during January 2010.

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