Metr 415/715

Monday May 13 2013

Today’s Agenda

1. Basics of LIDAR- Ground based LIDAR (pointing up)- Air borne LIDAR (pointing down)- Space borne LIDAR (pointing down)

---- Break ----2. Ground-based GPS measurements of precipitable water

Aerosols and Climate

Saharan Dust Storms

Detecting dust storms

The Sahara contributes about half of all of the dust carried into Earth's atmosphere every year. The dust in the atmosphere looks very much like the surface below it. Only in the past few years have new instruments and new techniques been developed that help scientists "see" which is dust and which is desert.

NASA’s Earth Observatory Pictures

• http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=81092

Article on aerosols• http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Ae

rosols/page5.php

LIDAR Links

General LIDAR Informationhttp://www.lidar-uk.com/lidar-links/

Airborne LIDAR uses by USGS – Coastal Processes

http://lidar.cr.usgs.gov

Ground-based High Spectral Resolution LIDAR

Space Borne LIDAR• The CALIPSO Mission – Part of the A-train of Satellites• The A- Train currently consists of five active satellites:• GCOM-W1 (SHIZUKU), lead spacecraft in formation, launched by

JAXA on May 18, 2012• Aqua, runs 4 minutes behind GCOM-W1, launched by

NASA on May 4, 2002• CloudSat, a cooperative effort between NASA and the

Canadian Space Agency, runs 2 minutes and 30 seconds behind Aqua, launched with CALIPSO on April 28, 2006

• CALIPSO, a joint effort of CNES and NASA, follows CloudSat by no more than 15 seconds, launched on April 28, 2006

• Aura, a multi-national satellite, lags Aqua by 15 minutes, crossing the equator 8 minutes behind due to different orbital track to allow for synergy with Aqua, launched by NASA on July 15, 2004

CALIPSO Mission

Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission, developed and managed by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, VACALIPSO is an Earth observing satellite that provides new insight into the role that clouds and atmospheric aerosols play in air qualityAqua was the first member launched of a group of satellites termed the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, a group of satellites that travel in line, one behind the other, along the same track, as they orbit Earth.

Article written before CALIPSO was launched

Current uncertainties in the effects of aerosols and clouds on the Earth radiation budget limit our understanding of the climate system and the potential for global climate change. The CALIPSO satellite will use an active lidar together with passive instruments to provide vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds and their properties which will help address these uncertainties. CALIPSO will fly in formation with the EOS Aqua and CloudSat satellites and the other satellites of the Aqua constellation. The acquisition of simultaneous and coincident observations will allow numerous synergies to be realized by combining CALIPSO observations with complementary observations from other platforms. In particu-lar, cloud observations from the CALIPSO lidar and the CloudSat radar will be complementary, together encompassing the variety of clouds found in the atmosphere, from thin cirrus to deep convective clouds. CALIPSO is being developed within the framework of a collaboration between NASA and CNES and is scheduled for launch in 2004.

LIDAR Instrument in CALIPSO

The CALIPSO satellite's instruments include a lidar, which shoots a laser into the atmosphere, then catches light that bounces off particles in the air to learn more about aerosols. CALIPSO is a collaboration between NASA and France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales

Aerosols captured by CALIPSO

Recent LIDAR Browse Images

• Available dates• http://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/products/lid

ar/browse_images/show_calendar.php• GOES East Archive pictures• http://www.goes.noaa.gov/srcheast.html

IR picture 4-30-13 0015Z

The following are full-disk satellite images

• Can we use the CALIPSO browse images to estimate the height of the clouds in these IR pictures?

Today’s Geostationary Satellite Pictures Indian Ocean 5/13/13 1230Z

Today’s Geostationary Satellite Pictures MTSAT Ocean 5/13/13 1232Z

Today’s Geostationary Satellite Pictures GOES West 5/13/13 1200Z

Today’s Geostationary Satellite Pictures GOES East 5/13/13 1145 Z

Today’s Geostationary Satellite Pictures Meteosat 5/13/13 1200 Z

Ground-based GPS measurements of precipitable water

Basic physical principle: Integrated amount of water vapor in the atmospheric column affects the time travel of GPS signals to ground stations at fixed well-known stations

US and Global real-time ground-based precipitable water GPS network

• http://www.suominet.ucar.edu