Antarctic cloud detection and classification from far and mid infrared downwelling radiance spectra: performances optimization and results

Author(s):  
Davide Magurno ◽  
Tiziano Maestri ◽  
William Cossich ◽  
Gianluca Di Natale ◽  
Luca Palchetti ◽  
...  

<p>This work aims at determining the best performing mid and far-infrared (MIR and FIR) joint spectral interval to identify and classify clouds in the Antarctic region by mean of a machine learning algorithm.</p><p>About 1700 spectral-resolved radiances, collected during 2013 by the ground based Radiation Explorer in the Far InfraRed-Prototype for Applications and Development, REFIR-PAD (Palchetti et al., 2015) at Dome C, Antarctic Plateau, are selected in coincidence with the co-located with backscatter and depolarization profiles derived from a tropospheric lidar system (Ricaud et al., 2017) to pre-classify clear sky, ice clouds, or mixed phase clouds.</p><p>A machine learning cloud identification and classification algorithm named CIC (Maestri et al., 2019), trained with a pre-selected set of REFIR-PAD spectra, is applied to this dataset by assuming that no other information than the spectrum itself is known.</p><p>The CIC algorithm is applied by considering different spectral intervals, in order to maximize the classification results for each class (clear sky, ice clouds, mixed phase clouds). A CIC "threat score" is defined as the classification true positives divided by the sum of true positives, false positives, and false negatives. The maximization of the threat score is used to assess the algorithm performances that span from 58% to 96% in accordance with the selected interval. The best performing spectral range is the 380-1000 cm<sup>-1</sup>. The result, besides suggesting the importance of a proper algorithm calibration in accordance with the used sensor, highlights the fundamental role of the FIR part of the spectrum.</p><p>The calibrated CIC algorithm is then applied to a larger REFIR-PAD dataset of about 90000 spectra collected from 2012 to 2015. Some results of the full dataset cloud classification are also presented.</p><p>The present work contributes to the preparatory studies for the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission that has recently been selected as ESA’s 9<sup>th</sup> Earth Explorer mission, scheduled for launch in 2026. </p><p> </p><p>References:</p><p><span>Maestri, T., Cossich, W., and Sbrolli, I., 2019: Cloud identification and classification from high spectral resolution data in the far infrared and mid-infrared, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, pp. 3521 - 3540</span></p><p><span>Palchetti, L., Bianchini, G., Di Natale, G., and Del Guasta, M., 2015: Far infrared radiative properties of water vapor and clouds in Antarctica. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 96, 1505–1518, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00286.1.</span></p><p><span>Ricaud, P., Bazile, E., del Guasta, M., Lanconelli, C., Grigioni, P., and Mahjoub, A., 2017: Genesis of diamond dust, ice fog and thick cloud episodes observed and modelled above Dome C, Antarctica, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 5221–5237, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5221-2017.</span></p>

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (18) ◽  
pp. 13811-13833
Author(s):  
William Cossich ◽  
Tiziano Maestri ◽  
Davide Magurno ◽  
Michele Martinazzo ◽  
Gianluca Di Natale ◽  
...  

Abstract. Statistics on the occurrence of clear skies, ice clouds, and mixed-phase clouds over Concordia Station, in the Antarctic Plateau, are provided for multiple timescales and analyzed in relation to simultaneous meteorological parameters measured at the surface. Results are obtained by applying a machine learning cloud identification and classification (CIC) code to 4 years of measurements between 2012–2015 of downwelling high-spectral-resolution radiances, measured by the Radiation Explorer in the Far Infrared – Prototype for Applications and Development (REFIR-PAD) spectroradiometer. The CIC algorithm is optimized for Antarctic sky conditions and results in a total hit rate of almost 0.98, where 1.0 is a perfect score, for the identification of the clear-sky, ice cloud, and mixed-phase cloud classes. Scene truth is provided by lidar measurements that are concurrent with REFIR-PAD. The CIC approach demonstrates the key role of far-infrared spectral measurements for clear–cloud discrimination and for cloud phase classification. Mean annual occurrences are 72.3 %, 24.9 %, and 2.7 % for clear sky, ice clouds, and mixed-phase clouds, respectively, with an inter-annual variability of a few percent. The seasonal occurrence of clear sky shows a minimum in winter (66.8 %) and maxima (75 %–76 %) during intermediate seasons. In winter the mean surface temperature is about 9 ∘C colder in clear conditions than when ice clouds are present. Mixed-phase clouds are observed only in the warm season; in summer they amount to more than one-third of total observed clouds. Their occurrence is correlated with warmer surface temperatures. In the austral summer, the mean surface air temperature is about 5 ∘C warmer when clouds are present than in clear-sky conditions. This difference is larger during the night than in daylight hours, likely due to increased solar warming. Monthly mean results are compared to cloud occurrence and fraction derived from gridded (Level 3) satellite products from both passive and active sensors. The differences observed among the considered products and the CIC results are analyzed in terms of footprint sizes and sensors' sensitivities to cloud optical and geometrical features. The comparison highlights the ability of the CIC–REFIR-PAD synergy to identify multiple cloud conditions and study their variability at different timescales.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Cossich ◽  
Tiziano Maestri ◽  
Davide Magurno ◽  
Michele Martinazzo ◽  
Gianluca Di Natale ◽  
...  

Abstract. Statistics on the occurrence of clear skies, ice and mixed-phase clouds over the Concordia station, in the Antarctic Plateau, are provided for multiple time scales and analysed in relation to simultaneous meteorological parameters measured at the surface. Results are obtained by applying a machine learning cloud identification and classification code (named CIC) to 4 years of measurements between 2012–2105 of down-welling high spectral resolution radiances, measured by the Radiation Explorer in the Far Infrared-Prototype for Applications and Development (REFIR-PAD) spectroradiometer. The CIC algorithm is optimized for Antarctic sky conditions (clear sky, ice clouds, and mixed-phase clouds) and results in a total hit rate of almost 0.98, where 1.0 is a perfect score. Scene truth is provided by LiDAR measurements that are concurrent with REFIR-PAD. The CIC approach demonstrates the key role of far infrared spectral measurements for clear/cloud discrimination and for cloud phase classification. Mean annual occurrences are 72.3 %, 24.9 % and 2.7 % for clear sky, ice and mixed-phase clouds respectively, with an inter-annual variability of a few percent. The seasonal occurrence of clear sky shows a minimum in winter (66.8 %) and maxima (75–76 %) during intermediate seasons. In winter the mean surface temperature is about 9 °C colder in clear conditions than when ice clouds are present. Mixed-phase clouds are observed only in the warm season; in summer they amount to more than one third of total observed clouds. Their occurrence is correlated with warmer surface temperatures. In the austral summer, the mean surface air temperature is about 5 °C warmer when clouds are present than in clear sky conditions. This difference is larger during the night than in daylight hours, likely due to increased solar warming. A comparison of monthly mean results with cloud occurrence/fraction derived from gridded (Level-3) satellite products, from both passive and active sensors, emphasizes the difficulty of adequately inferring cloud/clear-sky properties in the Antarctic region and highlights the ability of the CIC/REFIR-PAD synergy to identify multiple cloud conditions and study their variability at different time scales.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 17047-17059 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Solomon ◽  
Gijs de Boer ◽  
Jessie M. Creamean ◽  
Allison McComiskey ◽  
Matthew D. Shupe ◽  
...  

Abstract. This study investigates the interactions between cloud dynamics and aerosols in idealized large-eddy simulations (LES) of Arctic mixed-phase stratocumulus clouds (AMPS) observed at Oliktok Point, Alaska, in April 2015. This case was chosen because it allows the cloud to form in response to radiative cooling starting from a cloud-free state, rather than requiring the cloud ice and liquid to adjust to an initial cloudy state. Sensitivity studies are used to identify whether there are buffering feedbacks that limit the impact of aerosol perturbations. The results of this study indicate that perturbations in ice nucleating particles (INPs) dominate over cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) perturbations; i.e., an equivalent fractional decrease in CCN and INPs results in an increase in the cloud-top longwave cooling rate, even though the droplet effective radius increases and the cloud emissivity decreases. The dominant effect of ice in the simulated mixed-phase cloud is a thinning rather than a glaciation, causing the mixed-phase clouds to radiate as a grey body and the radiative properties of the cloud to be more sensitive to aerosol perturbations. It is demonstrated that allowing prognostic CCN and INPs causes a layering of the aerosols, with increased concentrations of CCN above cloud top and increased concentrations of INPs at the base of the cloud-driven mixed layer. This layering contributes to the maintenance of the cloud liquid, which drives the dynamics of the cloud system.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 4027-4077 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Wiacek ◽  
T. Peter ◽  
U. Lohmann

Abstract. This modelling study explores the availability of mineral dust particles as ice nuclei for interactions with ice, mixed-phase and liquid water clouds, also tracking the particles' history of cloud-processing. We performed 61 320 one-week forward trajectory calculations originating near the surface of major dust emitting regions in Africa and Asia using high-resolution meteorological analysis fields for the year 2007. Without explicitly modelling dust emission and deposition processes, dust-bearing trajectories were assumed to be those coinciding with known dust emission seasons. We found that dust emissions from Asian deserts lead to a higher potential for interactions with high clouds, despite being the climatologically much smaller dust emission source. This is due to Asian regions experiencing significantly more ascent than African regions, with strongest ascent in the Asian Taklimakan desert at ~25%, ~40% and 10% of trajectories ascending to 300 hPa in spring, summer and fall, respectively. The specific humidity at each trajectory's starting point was transported in a Lagrangian manner and relative humidities with respect to water and ice were calculated in 6-h steps downstream, allowing us to estimate the formation of liquid, mixed-phase and ice clouds. Practically none of the simulated air parcels reached regions where homogeneous ice nucleation can take place (T≲−40 °C) along trajectories that have not experienced water saturation first. By far the largest fraction of cloud forming trajectories entered conditions of mixed-phase clouds, where mineral dust will potentially exert the biggest influence. The majority of trajectories also passed through regions supersaturated with respect to ice but subsaturated with respect to water, where "warm" (T≳−40 °C) ice clouds may form prior to supercooled water or mixed-phase clouds. The importance of "warm" ice clouds and the general influence of dust in the mixed-phase cloud region are highly uncertain due to considerable scatter in recent laboratory data from ice nucleation experiments, which we briefly review in this work. For "classical" cirrus-forming temperatures, our results show that only mineral dust IN that underwent mixed-phase cloud-processing previously are likely to be relevant, and, therefore, we recommend further systematic studies of immersion mode ice nucleation on mineral dust suspended in atmospherically relevant coatings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 12889-12903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Bantges ◽  
Helen E. Brindley ◽  
Jonathan E. Murray ◽  
Alan E. Last ◽  
Jacqueline E. Russell ◽  
...  

Abstract. Measurements of mid- to far-infrared nadir radiances obtained from the UK Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe 146 aircraft during the Cirrus Coupled Cloud-Radiation Experiment (CIRCCREX) are used to assess the performance of various ice cloud bulk optical property models. Through use of a minimization approach, we find that the simulations can reproduce the observed spectra in the mid-infrared to within measurement uncertainty, but they are unable to simultaneously match the observations over the far-infrared frequency range. When both mid- and far-infrared observations are used to minimize residuals, first-order estimates of the spectral flux differences between the best-performing simulations and observations indicate a compensation effect between the mid- and far-infrared such that the absolute broadband difference is < 0.7 W m−2. However, simply matching the spectra using the mid-infrared (far-infrared) observations in isolation leads to substantially larger discrepancies, with absolute differences reaching ∼ 1.8 (3.1) W m−2. These results show that simulations using these microphysical models may give a broadly correct integrated longwave radiative impact but that this masks spectral errors, with implicit consequences for the vertical distribution of atmospheric heating. They also imply that retrievals using these models applied to mid-infrared radiances in isolation will select cirrus optical properties that are inconsistent with far-infrared radiances. As such, the results highlight the potential benefit of more extensive far-infrared observations for the assessment and, where necessary, the improvement of current ice bulk optical models.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 8807-8828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Lohmann ◽  
David Neubauer

Abstract. How clouds change in a warmer climate remains one of the largest uncertainties for the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). While a large spread in the cloud feedback arises from low-level clouds, it was recently shown that mixed-phase clouds are also important for ECS. If mixed-phase clouds in the current climate contain too few supercooled cloud droplets, too much ice will change to liquid water in a warmer climate. As shown by Tan et al. (2016), this overestimates the negative cloud-phase feedback and underestimates ECS in the CAM global climate model (GCM). Here we use the newest version of the ECHAM6-HAM2 GCM to investigate the importance of mixed-phase and ice clouds for ECS. Although we also considerably underestimate the fraction of supercooled liquid water globally in the reference version of the ECHAM6-HAM2 GCM, we do not obtain increases in ECS in simulations with more supercooled liquid water in the present-day climate, different from the findings by Tan et al. (2016). We hypothesize that it is not the global supercooled liquid water fraction that matters, but only how well low- and mid-level mixed-phase clouds with cloud-top temperatures in the mixed-phase temperature range between 0 and −35 ∘C that are not shielded by higher-lying ice clouds are simulated. These occur most frequently in midlatitudes, in particular over the Southern Ocean where they determine the amount of absorbed shortwave radiation. In ECHAM6-HAM2 the amount of absorbed shortwave radiation over the Southern Ocean is only significantly overestimated if all clouds below 0 ∘C consist exclusively of ice. Only in this simulation is ECS significantly smaller than in all other simulations and the cloud optical depth feedback is the dominant cloud feedback. In all other simulations, the cloud optical depth feedback is weak and changes in cloud feedbacks associated with cloud amount and cloud-top pressure dominate the overall cloud feedback. However, apart from the simulation with only ice below 0 ∘C, differences in the overall cloud feedback are not translated into differences in ECS in our model. This insensitivity to the cloud feedback in our model is explained with compensating effects in the clear sky.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Solomon ◽  
Gijs de Boer ◽  
Jessie M. Creamean ◽  
Allison McComiskey ◽  
Matthew D. Shupe ◽  
...  

Abstract. This study investigates the interactions between cloud dynamics and aerosols in idealized large-eddy simulations of an Arctic mixed-phase stratocumulus cloud observed at Oliktok Point, Alaska in April 2015. This case was chosen because it allows the cloud to form in response to radiative cooling starting from a cloud-free state, rather than requiring the cloud ice and liquid to adjust to an initial cloudy state. Sensitivity studies are used to identify whether there are buffering feedbacks that limit the impact of aerosol perturbations. The results of this study indicate that perturbations in ice nucleating particles (INPs) dominate over cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) perturbations, i.e., an equivalent fractional decrease in CCN and INPs results in an increase in the cloud-top longwave cooling rate, even though the droplet effective radius increases and the cloud emissivity decreases. The dominant effect of ice in the simulated mixed-phase cloud is a thinning rather than a glaciation, causing the mixed-phase clouds to radiate as a grey body and the radiative properties of the cloud to be more sensitive to aerosol perturbations. It is demonstrated that allowing prognostic CCN and INP causes a layering of the aerosols, with increased concentrations of CCN above cloud top and increased concentrations of INP at the base of the cloud-driven mixed-layer. This layering contributes to the maintenance of the cloud liquid, which drives the dynamics of the cloud system.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (18) ◽  
pp. 8649-8667 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Wiacek ◽  
T. Peter ◽  
U. Lohmann

Abstract. This modelling study explores the availability of mineral dust particles as ice nuclei for interactions with ice, mixed-phase and liquid water clouds, also tracking the particles' history of cloud-processing. We performed 61 320 one-week forward trajectory calculations originating near the surface of major dust emitting regions in Africa and Asia using high-resolution meteorological analysis fields for the year 2007. Dust-bearing trajectories were assumed to be those coinciding with known dust emission seasons, without explicitly modelling dust emission and deposition processes. We found that dust emissions from Asian deserts lead to a higher potential for interactions with high ice clouds, despite being the climatologically much smaller dust emission source. This is due to Asian regions experiencing significantly more ascent than African regions, with strongest ascent in the Asian Taklimakan desert at ~25%, ~40% and 10% of trajectories ascending to 300 hPa in spring, summer and fall, respectively. The specific humidity at each trajectory's starting point was transported in a Lagrangian manner and relative humidities with respect to water and ice were calculated in 6-h steps downstream, allowing us to estimate the formation of liquid, mixed-phase and ice clouds. Downstream of the investigated dust sources, practically none of the simulated air parcels reached conditions of homogeneous ice nucleation (T≲−40 °C) along trajectories that have not experienced water saturation first. By far the largest fraction of cloud forming trajectories entered conditions of mixed-phase clouds, where mineral dust will potentially exert the biggest influence. The majority of trajectories also passed through atmospheric regions supersaturated with respect to ice but subsaturated with respect to water, where so-called "warm ice clouds" (T≳−40 °C) theoretically may form prior to supercooled water or mixed-phase clouds. The importance of "warm ice clouds" and the general influence of dust in the mixed-phase cloud region are highly uncertain due to both a considerable scatter in recent laboratory data from ice nucleation experiments, which we briefly review in this work, and due to uncertainties in sub-grid scale vertical transport processes unresolved by the present trajectory analysis. For "classical" cirrus-forming temperatures (T≲−40 °C), our results show that only mineral dust ice nuclei that underwent mixed-phase cloud-processing, most likely acquiring coatings of organic or inorganic material, are likely to be relevant. While the potential paucity of deposition ice nuclei shown in this work dimishes the possibility of deposition nucleation, the absence of liquid water droplets at T≲−40 °C makes the less explored contact freezing mechanism (involving droplet collisions with bare ice nuclei) highly inefficient. These factors together indicate the necessity of further systematic studies of immersion mode ice nucleation on mineral dust suspended in atmospherically relevant coatings.


2008 ◽  
Vol 88 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 266-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Ehrlich ◽  
Manfred Wendisch ◽  
Eike Bierwirth ◽  
Andreas Herber ◽  
Alfons Schwarzenböck

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 656-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Paul Lawson ◽  
Knut Stamnes ◽  
Jakob Stamnes ◽  
Pat Zmarzly ◽  
Jeff Koskuliks ◽  
...  

Abstract A tethered-balloon system capable of making microphysical and radiative measurements in clouds is described and examples of measurements in boundary layer stratus clouds in the Arctic and at the South Pole are presented. A 43-m3 helium-filled balloon lofts an instrument package that is powered by two copper conductors in the tether. The instrument package can support several instruments, including, but not limited to, a cloud particle imager; a forward-scattering spectrometer probe; temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind sensors; ice nuclei filters; and a 4-π radiometer that measures actinic flux at 500 and 800 nm. The balloon can stay aloft for an extended period of time (in excess of 24 h) and conduct vertical profiles up to about 1–2 km, contingent upon payload weight, wind speed, and surface elevation. Examples of measurements in mixed-phase clouds at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard (79°N), and at the South Pole are discussed. The stratus clouds at Ny-Ålesund ranged in temperature from 0° to −10°C and were mostly mixed phase with heavily rimed ice particles, even when cloud-top temperatures were warmer than −5°C. Conversely, mixed-phase clouds at the South Pole contained regions with only water drops at temperatures as cold as −32°C and were often composed of pristine ice crystals. The radiative properties of mixed-phase clouds are a critical component of radiative transfer in polar regions, which, in turn, is a lynch pin for climate change on a global scale.


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