REMOTE SENSING OF GLOBAL CIRRUS CLOUDS USING SATELLITE DATA

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED STUDY IN PHASE I IS TO DEVELOP A NOVEL AND COMPREHENSIVE ALGORITHM FOR THE RETRIEVAL OF THE COMPOSITIONS AND STRUCTURE OF CIRRUS CLOUDS USING DATA GATHERED FROM ORBITING METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITES. IN THE PROPOSED PROGRAM, THE TEMPERATURE, EMISSIVITY AND FRACTIONAL COVER OF CIRRUS CLOUDS ARE FIRST DETERMINED FROM NOAA-AVHRR AND DMSP-OLS RADIANCE DATA. ONCE THE CIRRUS CLOUD TEMPERATURE IS KNOWN, THE MEAN ICE CRYSTAL SIZE DISTRIBUTION AND ICE WATER CONTENT MAY BE DETERMINED THROUGH PARAMETERIZED EQUATIONS DERIVED FROM AIRCRAFT CLOUD MICROPHYSICAL DATA. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE SCATTERING AND ABSORPTION PROPERTIES OF ICE CRYSTALS FOR THE WAVELENGTHS OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL INTEREST CAN BE COMPUTED FROM LIGHT SCATTERING PROGRAMS. FINALLY, USING THE SCATTERING AND ABSORPTION PROPERTIES OF ICE CRYSTALS, SIMULATION OF THE RADIATION ATTENUATION FOR A TARGET-SENSOR SYSTEM ASSOCIATED WITH THE MILITARY ELECTRO-OPTICS REQUIREMENT MAY BE CARRIED OUT.