Clouds cover about 70% of Earth's surface and play a dominant role in the energy and water cycle of our planet. Only satellite observations provide a continuous survey of the state of the atmosphere over the entire globe and across the wide range of spatial and temporal scales that compose weather and climate variability. Satellite cloud data records now exceed more than 25 years; however, climate data records must be compiled from different satellite datasets and can exhibit systematic biases. Questions therefore arise as to the accuracy and limitations of the various sensors and retrieval methods. The Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud Assessment, initiated in 2005 by the GEWEX Radiation Panel (GEWEX Data and Assessment Panel since 2011), provides the first coordinated intercomparison of publicly available, standard global cloud products (gridded monthly statistics) retrieved from measurements of multispectral imagers (some with multiangle view and polarization capabilities), IR sounders, and lidar. Cloud properties under study include cloud amount, cloud height (in terms of pressure, temperature, or altitude), cloud thermodynamic phase, and cloud radiative and bulk microphysical properties (optical depth or emissivity, effective particle radius, and water path). Differences in average cloud properties, especially in the amount of high-level clouds, are mostly explained by the inherent instrument measurement capability for detecting and/or identifying optically thin cirrus, especially when overlying low-level clouds. The study of long-term variations with these datasets requires consideration of many factors. The monthly gridded database presented here facilitates further assessments, climate studies, and the evaluation of climate models.

Daytime measurements of reflected sunlight in the visible spectrum have been a staple of Earth-viewing radiometers since the advent of the environmental satellite platform. At night, these same optical-spectrum sensors have traditionally been limited to thermal infrared emission, which contains relatively poor information content for many important weather and climate parameters. These deficiencies have limited our ability to characterize the full diurnal behavior and processes of parameters relevant to improved monitoring, understanding and modeling of weather and climate processes. Visible-spectrum light information does exist during the nighttime hours, originating from a wide variety of sources, but its detection requires specialized technology. Such measurements have existed, in a limited way, on USA Department of Defense satellites, but the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, which carries a new Day/Night Band (DNB) radiometer, offers the first quantitative measurements of nocturnal visible and near-infrared light. Here, we demonstrate the expanded potential for nocturnal low-light visible applications enabled by the DNB. Via a combination of terrestrial and extraterrestrial light sources, such observations are always available—expanding many current existing applications while enabling entirely new capabilities. These novel low-light measurements open doors to a wealth of new interdisciplinary research topics while lighting a pathway toward the optimized design of follow-on satellite based low light visible sensors.

This paper summarizes the Collection-6 refinements in the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) operational cloud-top properties algorithm. The focus is on calibration improvements and on cloud macrophysical properties including cloud-top pressure–temperature–height and cloud thermodynamic phase. The cloud phase is based solely on infrared band measurements. In addition, new parameters will be provided in Collection 6, including cloud-top height and a flag for clouds near the tropopause. The cloud parameters are improved primarily through 1) improved knowledge of the spectral response functions for the MODIS 15-μm carbon dioxide bands gleaned from comparison of coincident MODIS and Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) radiance measurements and 2) continual comparison of global MODIS and Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) instantaneous cloud products throughout the course of algorithm refinement. Whereas the cloud-top macrophysical parameters were provided through Collection 5 solely at 5-km spatial resolution, these parameters will be available additionally at 1-km spatial resolution in Collection 6.

The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Pathfinder Atmospheres–Extended (PATMOS-x) dataset offers over three decades of global observations from the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) project and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) [Meteorological Operational (MetOp)] satellite series. The AVHRR has flown since 1978 and continues to provide radiometrically consistent observations with a spatial resolution of roughly 4 km and a temporal resolution of an ascending and descending node per satellite per day, achieving global coverage. The AVHRR PATMOS-x data provide calibrated AVHRR observations in addition to properties about tropospheric clouds and aerosols, Earth's surface, Earth's radiation budget, and relevant ancillary data. To provide three decades of data in a convenient format, PATMOS-x generates mapped and sampled results with a spatial resolution of 0.1° on a global latitude–longitude grid. This format avoid... The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Pathfinder Atmospheres–Extended (PATMOS-x) dataset offers over three decades of global observations from the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) project and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) [Meteorological Operational (MetOp)] satellite series. The AVHRR has flown since 1978 and continues to provide radiometrically consistent observations with a spatial resolution of roughly 4 km and a temporal resolution of an ascending and descending node per satellite per day, achieving global coverage. The AVHRR PATMOS-x data provide calibrated AVHRR observations in addition to properties about tropospheric clouds and aerosols, Earth's surface, Earth's radiation budget, and relevant ancillary data. To provide three decades of data in a convenient format, PATMOS-x generates mapped and sampled results with a spatial resolution of 0.1° on a global latitude–longitude grid. This format avoid...

This paper demonstrates that the split-window approach for estimating cloud properties can improve upon the methods commonly used for generating cloud temperature and emissivity climatologies from satellite imagers. Because the split-window method provides cloud properties that are consistent for day and night, it is ideally suited for the generation of a cloud climatology from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), which provides sampling roughly four times per day. While the split-window approach is applicable to all clouds, this paper focuses on its application to cirrus (high semitransparent ice clouds), where this approach is most powerful. An optimal estimation framework is used to extract estimates of cloud temperature, cloud emissivity, and cloud microphysics from the AVHRR split-window observations. The performance of the split-window approach is illustrated through the diagnostic quantities generated by the optimal estimation approach. An objective assessment of the performance of the algorithm cloud products from the recently launched space lidar [Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation/Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIPSO/CALIOP)] is used to characterize the performance of the AVHRR results and also to provide the constraints needed for the optimal estimation approach.