A113-0002
A 40 year record of UV cloud albedo from SBUV and OMPS instruments: inter-satellite calibration and trends

Friday, 11 December 2020
Poster
Clark j Weaver1,2, Dong Liang Wu3, Pawan K Bhartia1, Gordon J Labow1 and David P Haffner4, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, College PARK, MD, United States, (3)NASA/Goddard Space Flight Cent, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (4)Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, MD, United States
Abstract:
Black-sky cloud albedo (BCA) is derived from satellite UV 340 nm observations from NOAA and NASA satellites to infer long-term (1980–2019) shortwave cloud albedo variations induced by volcano eruptions, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, and decadal warming. While the UV cloud albedo has shown no long-term trend since 1980, there are statistically significant reductions over the North Atlantic, midlatitude North Pacific, and south of the equator in the Pacific. Our record also shows increasing cloudiness in the tropical West Pacific, Northern Indian Ocean, and subtropical Southeast Pacific. These features are in qualitative agreement with low-level cloud amounts sourced from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and Pathfinder Atmospheres-Extended (PATMOS-x).

Maps of volcanic eruption-induced BCA perturbations for El Chichón and Mt. Pinatubo are also compared. The El Chichón BCA perturbation was at least +1% albedo throughout most of the NH tropics, while Mt. Pinatubo appeared to impact both hemispheres.

The derived BCA assumes a C-1 water cloud model with varying cloud optical depths and a Cox–Munk surface BRDF over the ocean, using radiances calibrated over the East Antarctic Plateau and Greenland ice sheets during summer.

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