The influence of anthropogenic aerosols, in the form of ship exhaust effluent, on the microphysics and radiative properties of marine stratocumulus is studied using data gathered from the U.K. Met. Office C-130 and the University of Washington C-131A aircraft during the Monterey Area Ship Track (MAST) experiment in 1994. During...
The 1-km advanced very high resolution radiometer observations from the morning, NOAA-12, and afternoon,
NOAA-11, satellite passes over the coast of California during June 1994 are used to determine the altitudes,
visible optical depths, and cloud droplet effective radii for low-level clouds. Comparisons are made between
the properties of clouds...
The Collection 6 (C6) MODIS (Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer) land and atmosphere data
sets are scheduled for release in 2014. C6 contains significant
revisions of the calibration approach to account for sensor
aging. This analysis documents the presence of systematic
temporal trends in the visible and near-infrared (500 m)
bands...
Widespread stratocumulus clouds were observed on nine transects from seven research cruises to the southeastern tropical Pacific Ocean along 20°S, 75°–85°W in October–November of 2001–08. The nine transects sample a unique combination of synoptic and interannual variability affecting the clouds; their ensemble diagnoses longitude–vertical sections of the atmosphere, diurnal cycles...
The nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region has been characterized in the sister genera Larix and Pseudotsuga (Pinaceae). Complete sequences were obtained for seven species of Larix from North America and Eurasia and five species of Pseudotsuga from western North America and eastern Asia. ITS region lengths...
Recent satellite observations indicate a significant decrease of cloud water in ship tracks, in contrast to an ensemble of in situ ship-track measurements showing no average change in cloud water relative to the surrounding clouds, and contrary to the expectation of cloud water increasing in polluted clouds. We find through...
We evaluate a regional-scale simulation with the WRF-Chem model for the VAMOS (Variability of the American Monsoon Systems) Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study Regional Experiment (VOCALS-REx), which sampled the Southeast Pacific's persistent stratocumulus deck. Evaluation of VOCALS-REx ship-based and three aircraft observations focuses on analyzing how aerosol loading affects marine boundary layer (MBL)...
To explore the biogeographic history of Mediterranean/arid plant disjunctions, Old and New World Senecio sect. Senecio were analyzed phylogenetically using nuclear ribosomal DNA sequences (ITS). A clade corresponding to sect. Senecio was strongly supported. Area optimization indicated this clade to be of southern African origin. The Mediterranean and southern African...
Aerosols and clouds have important effects on Earth's climate through their effects on the radiation budget and the cycling of water between the atmosphere and Earth's surface. Limitations in our understanding of the global distribution and properties of aerosols and clouds are partly responsible for the current uncertainties in modeling...
The Clouds, Aerosol, and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer (CAP-MBL) deployment at Graciosa Island in the Azores generated a 21-month (April 2009–December 2010) comprehensive dataset documenting clouds, aerosols, and precipitation using the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF). The scientific aim of the deployment is to gain...
This paper shows a small sampling of the atmospheric fields provided by the
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), which is installed on both the
Terra and Aqua satellites of the Earth Observing System. These fields include macroscale
fields like cloud fraction, cloud top pressure, cloud optical depth, and column water...
One-kilometer Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) observations of the effects of ships on
low-level clouds off the west coast of the United States are used to derive limits for the degree to which clouds
might be altered by increases in anthropogenic aerosols. As ships pass beneath low-level clouds, particles...
Ship tracks appearing in both the morning and afternoon Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery for the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the United States were used to study the morning-to-afternoon evolution of marine stratus polluted by underlying ships and nearby uncontaminated stratus. Analyzed 925-hPa winds were used...
A new dataset synthesizes in situ and remote sensing observations from research ships deployed to the southeastern tropical Pacific stratocumulus region for 7 years in boreal fall. Surface meteorology, turbulent and radiative fluxes, aerosols, cloud properties, and rawinsonde profiles were measured on nine ship transects along 20°S from 75° to...
The response of already polluted marine stratocumulus to additional particles was examined by studying the clouds where two ship tracks cross. Nearly 100 such crossings were collected and analyzed using Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) multispectral imagery for the daytime passes off the western coast of the...
One important role of anthropogenic aerosol particles is their influence on climate by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. However, these particles are diverse in composition and mixing state, and our knowledge of which particle types act as cloud condensation nuclei is incomplete. Here we present direct measurements of individual organic...
The daytime evolution of warm cloud microphysical properties over the southeast Pacific during October–November 2008 is investigated with optical/infrared retrievals from the Tenth Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-10) imager. GOES-10 retrievals, produced at NASA Langley Research Center, are validated against in situ aircraft observations and with independent satellite observations. Comparisons...
The present work shows predatory behavior of the social orb-weaver spider, Geratonephila burmanica n. gen., n. sp. (Araneae: Nephilidae) against a parasitic wasp, Cascoscelio incassa n. gen., n. sp., (Hymenoptera: Platygasteridae) in Early Cretaceous Burmese amber. An adult male and juvenile of Geratonephila burmanica n. gen., n. sp. in the...
In order to better understand the general problem of satellite cloud top height
retrievals for low clouds, observations made by NOAA research vessels in the
stratocumulus region in the southeastern Pacific during cruises in 2001 and 2003 to 2006
were matched with near-coincident retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer...
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with the ship-based
measurements.
Citation: Garay, M. J., S. P. de Szoeke, and C. M. Moroney (2008
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) 4-km data collected over the northeastern Atlantic off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula for May to August 1995 were used to investigate the feasibility of empirically deriving estimates of the aerosol indirect radiative forcing. A retrieval scheme was used to derive cloud visible...
Data from nine stratocumulus clouds in the northeastern Pacific Ocean were analyzed
to determine the effect of aerosol particles on cloud microphysical and radiative properties.
Seven nighttime and two daytime cases were included. The number concentration of
below-cloud aerosol particles (> 0.10 μm diameter) was highly correlated with cloud
droplet...
Collocated Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery and
Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) 532 nm
total attenuated backscatter coefficients were used to identify 50 km scale segments
for ocean regions that had only a single layer of marine stratocumulus. On the basis of
whether the underlying ocean...
Studies using International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data have reported decreases in cloud optical depth with increasing temperature, thereby suggesting a positive feedback in cloud optical depth as climate warms. The negative cloud optical depth and temperature relationships are questioned because ISCCP employs threshold assumptions to identify cloudy pixels...
Observations of sunlight reflected from regions of sun glint are used to check the relative calibration of spectral radiances obtained with imaging radiometers. Reflectances at different wavelengths for sun-glint regions are linearly related. Provided that the atmosphere is reasonably transparent at the wavelengths, the aerosol burden is reasonably light, 0.64-μm...
In determining aerosol-cloud interactions, the properties of aerosols must be characterized in the vicinity of clouds. Numerous studies based on satellite observations have reported that aerosol optical depths increase with increasing cloud cover. Part of the increase comes from the humidification and consequent growth of aerosol particles in the moist...
Surface albedo is a key parameter in the Earth's energy balance since it affects the amount of solar radiation directly absorbed at the planet surface. Its variability in time and space can be globally retrieved through the use of remote sensing products. To evaluate and improve the quality of satellite...
Retrievals of cloud properties from satellite imagery often invoke the assumption that the fields of view are overcast when cloud-contaminated, even though a significant fraction are only partially cloud-covered. The overcast assumption leads to biases in the retrieved cloud properties: cloud amounts and droplet effective radii are typically overestimated, while...
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) 4-km data were collected over the northeast Atlantic for May–August 1995–1999. Aerosol optical depth at 0.55 μm was retrieved in pixels identified as being cloud-free ocean. In pixels identified as containing clouds from single-layered, low-level cloud systems over oceans, the following cloud properties were...
Hyperion is a hyperspectral sensor on board NASA’s EO-1 satellite with a spatial
resolution of approximately 30 m and a swath width of about 7 km. It was originally designed
for land applications, but its unique spectral configuration (430 nm – 2400 nm with a ~10 nm
spectral resolution) and...
This paper describes the atmospheric correction (AC) component of the Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction algorithm (MAIAC) which introduces a new way to compute parameters of the Ross-Thick Li-Sparse (RTLS) Bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), spectral surface albedo and bidirectional reflectance factors (BRF) from satellite measurements obtained by the Moderate...
Speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus) is a small cyprinid that is geographically widespread throughout western North America, and the most frequently occurring sh in Oregon. Because of the genetic and morphological variation in this species across its range, it has been referred to as a "species complex" and no revision to...
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respect to each other,
the two populations are regarded as separate species (Nelson and Platnick, 1981
Seasonality and drought in Amazon rainforests have been controversially discussed in the literature, partially due to a limited ability of current remote sensing techniques to detect its impacts on tropical vegetation. We use a multi-angle remote sensing approach to determine changes in vegetation structure from differences in directional scattering (anisotropy)...
In situ airborne sampling of refractory black carbon (rBC) particles and Ice Nuclei (IN) was conducted in and near an extratropical cyclonic storm in the western Pacific Ocean during the Pacific Dust Experiment, PACDEX, in the spring of 2007. Airmass origins were from Eastern Asia. Clouds associated primarily with the...
It has been hypothesized that continuous ground-based remote sensing measurements
from collocated active and passive remote sensors combined with regular soundings of the
atmospheric thermodynamic structure can be combined to describe the effects of clouds on
the clear sky radiation fluxes. We critically test that hypothesis in this paper and...