An analysis of the dependence of clear‐sky top‐of‐atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation on atmospheric temperature and water vapor

Dessler, A. E.; Yang, Ping; Lee, J.; Solbrig, Jeremy E.; Zhang, Zhe; Minschwaner, K.

doi:10.1029/2008jd010137

Cited by 26 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Clear-sky OLR from CERES-EBAF data is derived only from measurements over clear-sky atmospheric columns which are generally drier than the clear part of a cloudy atmospheric CERES column. Because a drier atmospheric column leads to a stronger OLR (e.g., Spencer and Braswell, 1997;Dessler et al, 2008;Roca et al, 2012), OLR clear from CERES-EBAF should overestimate OLR clear from C3M on average. The diurnal cycle, which is taken into account in OLR clear from CERES-EBAF but not in OLR clear from C3M (since we only used nighttime observations) could also play a role in the difference.…”

Section: Gridded Olrmentioning

confidence: 99%

The link between outgoing longwave radiation and the altitude at which a spaceborne lidar beam is fully attenuated

et al. 2017

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Abstract. According to climate model simulations, the changing altitude of middle and high clouds is the dominant contributor to the positive global mean longwave cloud feedback. Nevertheless, the mechanisms of this longwave cloud altitude feedback and its magnitude have not yet been verified by observations. Accurate, stable, and long-term observations of a metric-characterizing cloud vertical distribution that are related to the longwave cloud radiative effect are needed to achieve a better understanding of the mechanism of longwave cloud altitude feedback. This study shows that the direct measurement of the altitude of atmospheric lidar opacity is a good candidate for the necessary observational metric. The opacity altitude is the level at which a spaceborne lidar beam is fully attenuated when probing an opaque cloud. By combining this altitude with the direct lidar measurement of the cloud-top altitude, we derive the effective radiative temperature of opaque clouds which linearly drives (as we will show) the outgoing longwave radiation. We find that, for an opaque cloud, a cloud temperature change of 1 K modifies its cloud radiative effect by 2 W m −2 . Similarly, the longwave cloud radiative effect of optically thin clouds can be derived from their top and base altitudes and an estimate of their emissivity. We show with radiative transfer simulations that these relationships hold true at single atmospheric column scale, on the scale of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instantaneous footprint, and at monthly mean 2 • × 2 • scale. Opaque clouds cover 35 % of the ice-free ocean and contribute to 73 % of the global mean cloud radiative effect. Thin-cloud coverage is 36 % and contributes 27 % of the global mean cloud radiative effect. The link between outgoing longwave radiation and the altitude at which a spaceborne lidar beam is fully attenuated provides a simple formulation of the cloud radiative effect in the longwave domain and so helps us to understand the longwave cloud altitude feedback mechanism.

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Section: Gridded Olrmentioning

confidence: 99%

The link between outgoing longwave radiation and the altitude at which a spaceborne lidar beam is fully attenuated

et al. 2017

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“…This effort aims to estimate longwave spectral flux and broadband OLR directly from AIRS Level 1 calibrated radiances over each individual single footprint. This approach is different from other studies such as Dessler et al (2008), Moy et al (2010) and Susskind et al (2012), which fed temperature and humidity fields from AIRS Level 2 retrievals (defined for threeby-three AIRS footprints) or even the Level 3 monthly gridded data set into a radiative transfer model to compute the clear-sky OLR. Huang et al (2008Huang et al ( , 2010Huang et al ( , 2014 and Chen et al (2013) have demonstrated that such direct estimate of spectral flux from AIRS radiances is feasible, and the estimated OLR highly agree with the collocated CERES OLR.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Deriving clear-sky longwave spectral flux from spaceborne hyperspectral radiance measurements: a case study with AIRS observations

Chen¹,

Huang²

2016

Atmos. Meas. Tech.

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Abstract. Previous studies have shown that longwave (LW) spectral fluxes have unique merit in climate studies. Using Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) radiances as a case study, this study presents an algorithm to derive the entire LW clear-sky spectral fluxes from spaceborne hyperspectral observations. No other auxiliary observations are needed in the algorithm. A clear-sky scene is identified using a threestep detection method. The identified clear-sky scenes are then categorized into different sub-scene types using information about precipitable water, lapse rate and surface temperature inferred from the AIRS radiances at six selected channels. A previously established algorithm is then used to invert AIRS radiances to spectral fluxes over the entire LW spectrum at 10 cm −1 spectral interval. Accuracy of the algorithms is evaluated against collocated Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) observations. For nadir-view observations, the mean difference between outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) derived by this algorithm and the collocated CERES OLR is 1.52 Wm −2 with a standard deviation of 2.46 Wm −2 . When the algorithm is extended for viewing zenith angle up to 45 • , the performance is comparable to that for nadir-view results.

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“…Recently, polar-orbited hyperspectral infrared (IR) sensors, such as Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), have been popular in retrieving high-quality WV, especially UT WV, information on a global scale with high spatial resolution (Aires et al 2002, Divakarla et al 2006. Dessler et al (2008) illustrated that the calculated clear-sky top-of-atmosphere outgoing long-wave radiation from two radiative transfer models (RTMs) driven by moisture profiles retrieved from AIRS have excellent agreement with measurements from another satellite instruments, that is, the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES). However, the relatively short history of the hyperspectral data set limits its application in climate studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of radiative transfer models in atmospheric profiling with broadband infrared radiance measurements

Jin

Schmit

et al. 2011

International Journal of Remote Sensing

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The infrared (IR) profile sounding based on satellite observations is an irreplaceable technique to monitor global atmospheric moisture information with high spatial resolutions. The long-term record of satellite IR measurement provides invaluable information for global climate study. Radiative transfer models (RTMs) are key issues in the sounding technique. The community radiative transfer model (cRTM), radiative transfer for Television and Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounde (TOVS) (RTTOV) and pressure layer fast algorithm for atmospheric transmittances (PFAAST) are tested in the legacy atmospheric profile (LAP) retrieval algorithm for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) advanced baseline image (ABI). The Meteosat Second Generation/Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Image (MSG/SEVIRI) measurements are used as proxy in the RTM evaluation. It is found that cRTM has the best performance in brightness temperature simulation and the tangent linear scheme integrated in both cRTM and RTTOV is better than the currently used approximate analytic scheme in deriving Jacobian matrix.

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An analysis of the dependence of clear‐sky top‐of‐atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation on atmospheric temperature and water vapor

Cited by 26 publications

References 59 publications

The link between outgoing longwave radiation and the altitude at which a spaceborne lidar beam is fully attenuated

The link between outgoing longwave radiation and the altitude at which a spaceborne lidar beam is fully attenuated

Deriving clear-sky longwave spectral flux from spaceborne hyperspectral radiance measurements: a case study with AIRS observations

Evaluation of radiative transfer models in atmospheric profiling with broadband infrared radiance measurements

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