PNNL

Abstract

In this study, we use multiangular radiance distributions measured by the AirMISR - the airborne version of Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) - to evaluate the structure of continental stratocumulus simulated by a high-resolution cloud resolving model. While the CRM cannot be expected to reporduce any particular cloud scene exactly, the observed and simulated cloud fields should have the same statistical properties. By comparing the statistics of the simulated radiance fields with the statistics of the actual AirMISR measurements we aim to ascertain the fidelity of the high-resolution cloud model. Establishing realism of the simulated cloud and radiance fields is necessary in justifying using such simulations as surrogates for developing and testing conceptual models, retrieval algorithms, and parameterizations.