File:Tropical thin cirrus retrievals of particle size and optical depth from AIRS (8384469159).jpg

English: AIRS radiances and standard retrievals were used to obtain thin cirrus particle size and optical depth over the tropical oceans. (a) Normalized probability distribution of cloud top temperature for a total of 29 days. Histograms are partitioned into 5 bins of (0.0-0.1, 0.1-0.25, 0.25-0.5, 0.5-0.75, and 0.75-1.0). (B) Joint probability distributions of cloud top temperature and particle size for the same time period and intervals as (A). (C) Histograms of particle size for the same bins listed in (B). These results illustrate the usefulness of AIRS to characterize the cloudy atmosphere in the upper tropical troposphere. They also show that particle size tends to increase with optical depth and cloud top temperature, results that are consistent from other studies that use satellite, surface-based, or aircraft observational platforms.

Citation Kahn, B. H., Chahine, M. T., Stephens, G. L., Mace, G. G., Marchand, R. T., Wang, Z., Barnet, C. D., Eldering, A., Holz, R. E., Kuehn, R. E., and Vane, D. G.: Cloud type comparisons of AIRS, CloudSat, and CALIPSO cloud height and amount, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 1231-1248, 2008.

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About AIRS The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, AIRS, in conjunction with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, AMSU, sense emitted infrared and microwave radiation from the Earth to provide a three-dimensional look at Earth's weather and climate. Working in tandem, the two instruments make simultaneous observations all the way down to the Earth's surface, even in the presence of heavy clouds. With more than 2,000 channels sensing different regions of the atmosphere, the system creates a global, 3-dimensional map of atmospheric temperature and humidity, cloud amounts and heights, greenhouse gas concentrations, and many other atmospheric phenomena. The AIRS and AMSU fly onboard NASA's Aqua spacecraft and are managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, under contract to NASA. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Credit NASA/JPL AIRS Project

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