THE DEVELOPMENT OF IR-BASED VISIBLE CHANNEL CALIBRATION USING DEEP CONVECTIVE CLOUDS

Visible channel calibration method using deep convective clouds (DCCs) is developed. The method has advantages that visible radiance is not sensitive to cloud optical thickness (COT) for deep convective clouds because visible radiance no longer increases when COT exceeds 100. Therefore, once DCCs are chosen appropriately, and then cloud optical properties can be assumed without operational ancillary data for the specification of cloud conditions in radiative transfer model. In this study, it is investigated whether IR measurements can be used for the selection of DCC targets. To construct appropriate threshold value for the selection of DCCs, the statistics of cloud optical properties are collected with MODIS measurements. When MODIS brightness temperature (TB) at 11 ${\mu}$ m is restricted to be less than 190 K, it is shown that more than 85% of selected pixels show COT ${\geq}$ 100. Moreover, effective radius ($r_e$) distribution shows a sharp peak around 20 ${\mu}m$. Based on those MODIS observations, cloud optical properties are assumed as COT = 200 and $r_e$ = 20 ${\mu}m$ for the simulation of MODIS visible (0.646 ${\mu}m$) band radiances over DCC targets.