Infrared sounding of the trade-wind boundary layer: AIRS and the RICO experiment
Abstract
The new generation of remote sensors on board NASA's A-Train constellation offers the possibility of observing the atmospheric boundary layer in different regimes, with or without clouds. In this study we use data from the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) and of the Rain In Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO) campaign, to verify the accuracy and precision of the AIRS Version 5 Level 2 support product. This AIRS product has an improved vertical sampling that is necessary for the estimation of boundary layer properties. Good agreement is found between AIRS and RICO data, in a regime of oceanic shallow cumulus that is known to be difficult to analyze with other remote sensing data, and also shows a low sensitivity to cloud or land fraction. This suggests that AIRS data may be used for global boundary layer studies to support parameterization development in regions of difficult in-situ observation.
Additional Information
© 2010 American Geophysical Union. Received 22 October 2010; accepted 3 November 2010; published 22 December 2010. JM is thankful to L. Nuijens, I. Trigo and C. Liang for discussions and comments on earlier versions of this paper. We would also like to thank P. Zuidema and an anonymous reviewer for their comments that greatly improved this manuscript. This work was partially funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) under the grant SFRH/BD/37800/2007 and under Project REWRITE - PTDC/CLI/73814/2006, co-financed by the European Union under Program FEDER. JT acknowledges the support of the NASA MAP program and the Office of Naval Research. Part of the research described in this publication was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 64783
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160225-162312562
- SFRH/BD/37800/2007
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)
- PTDC/ CLI/73814/2006
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)
- FEDER
- European Union
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Office of Naval Research (ONR)
- Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS)
- Created
-
2016-02-26Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Keck Institute for Space Studies