title: Remote sensing of cirrus cloud optical thickness and effective particle size for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite: sensitivity to instrument noise and uncertainties in environmental parameters.
abstract: We describe sensitivity studies on the remote sensing of cirrus cloud optical thickness and effective particle size using the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite 0.67-, 1.24-, 1.61-, and 2.25-microm reflectances and thermal IR 3.70- and 10.76-microm radiances. To investigate the accuracy and precision of the solar and IR retrieval methods subject to instrument noise and uncertainties in environmental parameters, we carried out signal-to-noise ratio tests as well as the error budget study, where we used the University of California at Los Angeles line-by-line equivalent radiative transfer model to generate radiance tables for synthetic retrievals. The methodology and results of these error analyses are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1565, USA. ssou@atmos.ucla.edu
authors.forename: Szu-Cheng
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Ou
authors.forename: Yoshihide
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takano
authors.forename: K N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Liou
authors.forename: Glenn J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Higgins
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: George
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Slonaker