Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
May 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agusmsa53a..01s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SA53A-01
Physics
Optics
0310 Airglow And Aurora, 0319 Cloud Optics, 0321 Cloud/Radiation Interaction, 0360 Radiation: Transmission And Scattering, 3311 Clouds And Aerosols
Scientific paper
Recent satellite observations suggest that polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) occur more frequently and are brighter in the north compared to the south. However, a determination of how much more ice is present in the north requires a more direct standard of measurement. The PMC ice mass, calculated using both the PMC occurrence frequency and brightness, is one such standard. The PMC mass is a useful quantity for interpreting observations of solar backscattered light (θ>90°) from PMCs because it is relatively insensitive to variations in characteristics of the ice particle size distribution, used to compute the ice mass column from the cloud brightness. The Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) instruments simultaneously measured solar backscattered light from PMCs in both hemispheres between 1998-2003. SNOE observed PMCs on the limb while SBUV has observed PMCs in the nadir every year since 1979. Using data from the same latitudes (70±2.5°) and local times, we compare the PMC mass observed by both instruments in both hemispheres. Ice particle radii inferred from simultaneous measurements at three SBUV wavelengths in the mid-UV are greater than 80 nm in both hemispheres. These radii are larger than those typically inferred from more sensitive limb-viewing instruments such as SNOE, providing new constraints for global-scale climate models.
Bailey Scott M.
DeLand Matthew T.
Englert Christoph R.
Stevens Michael Hugh
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