Remote sensing of Tropical high altitude clouds and aerosols using ground based lidar and MODIS

[ABSTRACT]Indo-Japanese lidar system established over a tropical station, Gadanki (13.5 N,79.2 E), India is in operation since 1998.Using this system regular observations of upper troposphere clouds, and aerosols at stratospheric heights were made. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements on the Terra spacecraft are also used for remote sensing of high altitude clouds aerosols from space. Data collected using the polarization lidar during the period 1998-2004 are selected for systematic investigation and presentation. Several tropical cirrus cloud structures have been identified with low to moderate ice content. Occasionally thin sub visible clouds in the vicinity of tropical tropopause have been identified. Lidar observations clearly show occurrence of cirrus clouds over this station with varying thickness. The interseasonal variation of cirrus occurrence frequencies shows much of the occurrences during the monsoon season. The aerosol measurements in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere show low aerosol content with vertical distribution upto 35km altitude. Scattering ratio (SR) and aerosol extinction are found to exhibit seasonal and interannual variations in upper troposphere (UT) and lower stratosphere(LS).SR in UT in 2001 and 2004 during winter is lower than that of summer, while LS winter profiles are found to have higher SR values apparently experience a shift in altitude corresponding to the seasonal change in tropapause indicating a relation between the two. The correlation observations made using MODIS satellite are compared with lidar data for systematic statistical study.

https://opac.ll.chiba-u.jp/da/curator/106622/

https://opac.ll.chiba-u.jp/da/curator/106622/ceresIntlSympo-14-P061.pdf

Chiba University. Center for Environmental Remote Sensing

千葉大学環境リモートセンシング研究センター

Presentation

Proceedings of the CEReS international symposium = CEReS国際シンポジウム資料集

14

61

64

2008-11-13

publisher

Proceedings of the symposium on environmental remote sensing