Identification

Title

Improved modeling of cloudy-sky actinic flux using satellite cloud retrievals

Abstract

Clouds play a critical role in modulating tropospheric radiation and thus photochemistry. We develop a methodology for calculating the vertical distribution of tropospheric ultraviolet (300-420 nm) actinic fluxes using satellite cloud retrievals and a radiative transfer model. We demonstrate that our approach can accurately reproduce airborne-measured actinic fluxes from the 2013 Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) campaign as a case study. The results show that the actinic flux is reduced below moderately thick clouds with increasing cloud optical depth and can be enhanced by a factor of 2 above clouds. Inside clouds, the actinic flux can be enhanced by up to 2.4 times in the upper part of clouds or reduced up to 10 times in the lower parts of clouds. Our study suggests that the use of satellite-derived actinic fluxes as input to chemistry-transport models can improve the accuracy of photochemistry calculations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rj4m81

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-02-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact