Cloud Observations From Eos-Terra: From Conception to Interpretation of Cloud Climatologies With a Focus on Small Clouds

Global comparison between the MISR and MODIS cloud masks shows large discrepancies over regions dominated by small clouds. This discrepancy was further explored using an ASTER dataset at 15m resolution over the tropical western Atlantic. On average, MODIS and MISR overestimate cloud fraction by 18% and 36%, essentially making their cloud cover climatologies for this cloud type useless. Variations of spatial distribution of clouds cause large rms errors in the overestimated cloud fraction, suggesting that it may be difficult to decouple trends in cloud fraction from satellites from true changes in the spatial distribution of clouds. The shortcoming in the cloud climatology from these datasets was addressed by using the high-resolution ASTER. With ASTER, this thesis provides the most comprehensive examination to date of trade wind cumuli macrophysical properties. The results show large deviations from past studies, and will have a direct impact on models attempting to simulate trade wind cumuli.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Atmospheric Sciences

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Zhao, Guangyu

Contributors dc:contributor

• Di Girolamo, Larry

• Physics, Atmospheric Science

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3223765

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85969