Development of a Cloud-Top Height Estimation Method by Geostationary Satellite Split-Window Measurements Trained with CloudSat Data

Abstract

Abstract Lookup tables for estimating the cloud-top height and visible optical thickness of upper-tropospheric clouds by the infrared brightness temperature TB at 10.8 μm (T11) and its difference from TB at 12 μm (ΔT11–12) measured by a geostationary satellite are presented. These lookup tables were constructed by regressing the cloud radar measurements by the CloudSat satellite over the infrared measurements by the Japanese geostationary multifunctional transport satellite MTSAT-1R. Standard deviations of measurements around the estimates were also displayed as an indicator of the ambiguity in the estimates. For the upper-tropospheric clouds with T11 < 240 K, the standard deviations of the height estimations were less than 1 km. The dependences of the estimates of cloud-top height at each point in T11−ΔT11–12 space on latitude, season, satellite zenith angle, day–night, and land–sea differences were examined. It was shown that these dependences were considered uniform in the tropics except for the region with large satellite zenith angle. The presented lookup tables can provide hourly estimates of cloud-top height and optical thickness at a specified location and are fairly useful in comparing them with ground-based observations such as vertical profiles of humidity and/or wind.