HR: 1340h
AN: A13B-1166    [Abstracts]
TI: Statistical Analysis of Cumulonimbus Anvil and Surrounding Aerosol Properties in MODIS Retrievals Over Subtropical and Tropical Regions
AU: * Colón-Ramos, J
EM: jc2373@columbia.edu
AF: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, Room 252, New York, NY 10025, United States
AU: Fridlind, A M
EM: ann.fridlind@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, Room 252, New York, NY 10025, United States
AB: In a contribution to a study of the factors controlling cumulonimbus anvil crystal size, we performed a statistical analysis of MODIS Version 5 retrievals of cloud and aerosol properties. Geographical regions were chosen to coincide with the sites of the 2002 CRYSTAL-FACE field campaign (southern Florida) and the 2006 TWP-ICE field campaign (Darwin, Australia), and comparison was also made to larger continental and marine regions (central Amazon and central Pacific Ocean). The MODIS data were processed with algorithms developed in IDL (Interactive Data Language) that extract retrieved cloud optical thickness, aerosol optical depth, brightness temperature, effective particle radius, and cloud mask. Overall, our analysis indicates differences in anvil ice effective radius of only about 15% between the land and ocean regions examined, consistent with previous analyses. Correlation coefficients between anvil-top effective particle radius and locally retrieved aerosol optical depth are statistically significant but are very small except in the biomass burning region, where fires are expected to directly impact cloud properties (through pyrocumulus generation) and aerosol concentrations also reach exceptionally high values. We also demonstrate that the subset of anvil effective radius data analyzed (those for which local aerosol optical depth data were retrieved) are statistically representative of all such regional clouds.
DE: 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906)
DE: 0320 Cloud physics and chemistry
DE: 3311 Clouds and aerosols
DE: 3314 Convective processes
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting