Estimation of the cloud effective particle radius using MTSAT-1R data

Abstract

The algorithm used to retrieve the cloud effective particle radius from the 3.7 μm band was adapted to the corresponding channel of the Japanese Advanced Meteorological Imager (JAMI) flown on board the Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) geostationary platform. Snapshot comparisons with spatially well-resolved retrievals from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) instruments flown on the Terra polar platforms show qualitative agreement with MTSAT retrievals. The results of analysing daytime variation from eastern Asia to the northwest Pacific Ocean show that, not only is the effective particle radius smaller in continental clouds than in maritime clouds, but the daytime amplitude of the effective particle radius is also greater in continental clouds than in maritime clouds, where the effective particle radius value is approximately constant.

Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, 20710004, 2008. The authors express their thanks to the Level 1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for providing MOD06 products from ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov, the Data Support Section (DSS) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) for providing the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data from dss.ucar.edu/pub/reanalysis, and also to the Japan Meteorological Business Support Center (JMBSC) for providing MTSAT/JAMI images for use in this publication. All figures were drafted using the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) from gmt.soest.hawaii.edu.