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The outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) emitted to space is a fundamental component of the Earth’s energy budget. There are numerous, entangled physical processes that contribute to OLR and that are responsible for driving, and responding to, climate change. Spectrally resolved observations can disentangle these processes, but technical limitations have precluded accurate space-based spectral measurements covering the far infrared (FIR) from 100 to 667 cm−1 (wavelengths between 15 and 100 μm). The Earth’s FIR spectrum is thus essentially unmeasured even though at least half of the OLR arises from this spectral range. The region is strongly influenced by upper-tropospheric–lower-stratospheric water vapor, temperature lapse rate, ice cloud distribution, and microphysics, all critical parameters in the climate system that are highly variable and still poorly observed and understood. To cover this uncharted territory in Earth observations, the Far-Infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission has recently been selected as ESA’s ninth Earth Explorer mission for launch in 2026. The primary goal of FORUM is to measure, with high absolute accuracy, the FIR component of the spectrally resolved OLR for the first time with high spectral resolution and radiometric accuracy. The mission will provide a benchmark dataset of global observations which will significantly enhance our understanding of key forcing and feedback processes of the Earth’s atmosphere to enable more stringent evaluation of climate models. This paper describes the motivation for the mission, highlighting the scientific advances that are expected from the new measurements.

Cirrus are cloud types that are recognized to have a strong impact on the Earth-atmosphere radiation balance. This impact is however still poorly understood, due to the difficulties in describing the large variability of their properties in global climate models. Consequently, numerous airborne and space-borne missions have been dedicated to their study in the last decades. The satellite constellation A-Train has for instance proven to be particularly helpful for the study of cirrus. More particularly, the Infrared Imaging Radiometer (IIR) carried onboard the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite shows a great sensitivity to the radiative and microphysical properties of these clouds. Our study presents a novel methodology that uses the thermal infrared measurements of IIR to retrieve the ice crystal effective size and optical thickness of cirrus. This methodology is based on an optimal estimation scheme, which possesses the advantage of attributing precise uncertainties to the retrieved parameters. Two IIR airborne validation campaigns have been chosen as case studies for illustrating the results of our retrieval method. It is observed that optical thicknesses could be accurately retrieved but that large uncertainties may occur on the effective diameters. Strong agreements have also been found between the products of our method when separately applied to the measurements of IIR and of the airborne radiometer CLIMAT-AV, which consolidates the results of previous validation studies of IIR level-1 measurements. Comparisons with in situ observations and with operational products of IIR are also discussed and appear to be coherent with our results. However, we have found that the quality of our retrievals can be strongly impacted by uncertainties related to the choice of a pristine crystal model and by poor constraints on the properties of possible liquid cloud layers underneath cirrus. Simultaneous retrievals of liquid clouds radiative and microphysical properties and/or the use of different ice crystal models should therefore be considered in order to improve the quality of the results.

Ice clouds are an important element in the radiative balance of the earth's climate system, but their microphysical and optical properties still are not well constrained, especially ice particle habit and the degree of particle surface roughness. In situ observations have revealed common ice particle habits and evidence for surface roughness, but these observations are limited. An alternative is to infer the ice particle shape and surface roughness from satellite observations of polarized reflectivity since they are sensitive to both particle shape and degree of surface roughness. In this study an adding–doubling radiative transfer code is used to simulate polarized reflectivity for nine different ice habits and one habit mixture, along with 17 distinct levels of the surface roughness. A lookup table (LUT) is constructed from the simulation results and used to infer shape and surface roughness from PARASOL satellite polarized reflectivity data over the ocean. Globally, the retrievals yield a compact aggregate of columns as the most commonly retrieved ice habit. Analysis of PARASOL data from the tropics results in slightly more aggregates than in midlatitude or polar regions. Some level of surface roughness is inferred in nearly 70% of PARASOL data, with mean and median roughness near σ = 0.2 and 0.15, respectively. Tropical region analyses have 20% more pixels retrieved with particle surface roughness than in midlatitude or polar regions. The global asymmetry parameter inferred at a wavelength of 0.865 μm has a mean value of 0.77 and a median value of 0.75.

This is the first paper to investigate the relationship between the shape of the scattering phase function of cirrus and the relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi, using space-based solar radiometric angle-dependent measurements. The relationship between RHi and the complexity of ice crystals has been previously studied using data from aircraft field campaigns and laboratory cloud chambers. However, to the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies to date that explore this relationship through the use of remotely sensed space-based angle-dependent solar radiometric measurements. In this paper, one case study of semi-transparent cirrus, which occurred on 25 January 2010 off the north-east coast of Scotland, is used to explore the possibility of such a relationship. Moreover, for the first time, RHi fields predicted by a high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) model are combined with satellite retrievals of ice crystal complexity. The NWP model was initialised at midnight, on 25 January 2010, and the mid-latitude RHi field was extracted from the NWP model at 13:00 UTC. At about the same time, there was a PARASOL (Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectance for Atmospheric science coupled with Observations from a Lidar) overpass, and the PARASOL swath covered the NWP-model-predicted RHi field. The cirrus case was located over Scotland and the North Sea. From the satellite channel based at 0.865 μm, the directionally averaged and directional spherical albedos were retrieved between the scattering angles of about 80 and 130°. An ensemble model of cirrus ice crystals is used to predict phase functions that vary between phase functions that exhibit optical features (referred to as pristine) and featureless phase functions. For each of the PARASOL pixels, the phase function that best minimised differences between the spherical albedos was selected. This paper reports, for this one case study, an association between the most featureless phase function model and the highest values of NWP-predicted RHi (i.e. when RHi > 1.0). For pixels associated with NWP-model-predicted RHi < 1, it was impossible to generally discriminate between phase function models at the 5% significance level. It is also shown that the NWP model prediction of the vertical profile of RHi is in good agreement with dropsonde, in situ measurements and independent aircraft-based physical retrievals of RHi. Furthermore, the NWP model prediction of the cirrus cloud-top height and its vertical extent is also found to be in good agreement with aircraft-based lidar measurements.

Most of the current aerosol retrievals from passive sensors are restricted to cloud-free scenes, which strongly reduces our ability to monitor the aerosol properties at a global scale and to estimate their radiative forcing. The presence of aerosol above clouds (AAC) affects the polarized light reflected by the cloud layer, as shown by the spaceborne measurements provided by the POlarization and Directionality of Earth Reflectances (POLDER) instrument on the PARASOL satellite. In a previous work, a first retrieval method was developed for AAC scenes and evaluated for biomass-burning aerosols transported over stratocumulus clouds. The method was restricted to the use of observations acquired at forward scattering angles (90–120°) where polarized measurements are highly sensitive to fine-mode particle scattering. Non-spherical particles in the coarse mode, such as mineral dust particles, do not much polarize light and cannot be handled with this method. In this paper, we present new developments that allow retrieving also the properties of mineral dust particles above clouds. These particles do not much polarize light but strongly reduce the polarized cloud bow generated by the liquid cloud layer beneath and observed for scattering angles around 140°. The spectral attenuation can be used to qualitatively identify the nature of the particles (i.e. accumulation mode versus coarse mode, i.e. mineral dust particles versus biomass-burning aerosols), whereas the magnitude of the attenuation is related to the optical thickness of the aerosol layer. We also use the polarized measurements acquired in the cloud bow to improve the retrieval of both the biomass-burning aerosol properties and the cloud microphysical properties. We provide accurate polarized radiance calculations for AAC scenes and evaluate the contribution of the POLDER polarization measurements for the simultaneous retrieval of the aerosol and cloud properties. We investigate various scenes with mineral dust particles and biomass-burning aerosols above clouds. For clouds, our results confirm that the droplet size distribution is narrow in high-latitude ocean regions and that the droplet effective radii retrieved from both polarization measurements and from total radiance measurements are generally close for AAC scenes (departures smaller than 2 μm). We found that the magnitude of the primary cloud bow cannot be accurately estimated with a plane parallel transfer radiative code. The errors for the modeling of the polarized cloud bow are between 4 and 8% for homogenous cloudy scenes, as shown by a 3-D radiative transfer code. These effects only weakly impact the retrieval of the Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) performed with a mineral dust particle model for which the microphysical properties are entirely known (relative error smaller than 6%). We show that the POLDER polarization measurements allow retrieving the AOT, the fine-mode particle size, the Ångström exponent and the fraction of spherical particles. However, the complex refractive index and the coarse-mode particle size cannot be accurately retrieved with the present polarization measurements. Our complete and accurate algorithm cannot be applied to process large amounts of data, so a simpler algorithm was developed to retrieve the AOT and the Ångström exponent above clouds in an operational way. Illustrations are provided for July–August 2008 near the African coast. Large mean AOTs above clouds at 0.865 μm (>0.3) are retrieved for oceanic regions near the coasts of South Africa that correspond to biomass-burning aerosols, whereas even larger mean AOTs above clouds for mineral dust particles (>0.6) are also retrieved near the coasts of Senegal. For these regions and time period, the direct AAC radiative forcing is likely to be significant. The final aim of this work is the global monitoring of the AAC properties and the estimation of the direct aerosol radiative forcing in cloudy scenes.

The detection of aerosol above clouds is critical for the estimate of both the aerosol and cloud radiative impacts. In this study, the authors present a new method to retrieve the aerosol properties over clouds that uses the multiangle polarization measurements of the Polarization and Directionality of Earth Reflectances (POLDER)–Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences Coupled with Observations from a Lidar (PARASOL) instrument. The method is illustrated and applied to a case study exploiting the coincident observations from other passive and active sensors of the NASA A-Train satellite constellation. The case study is relative to an elevated biomass burning aerosol layer that originates from southern Africa and is then transported over low-level clouds extending over the Atlantic Ocean. It is shown that the comparison between the cloud-top heights retrieved with the different passive techniques developed for the A-Train sensors can be used to detect the presence of aerosols above clouds. The analysis of the PARASOL observations showed that the aerosols significantly affect the polarized light reflected by the clouds over the 80°–120° scattering angle range and in the rainbow region. A single scattering model permitted the reproduction of the polarization observations and the retrieval of an estimate of the aerosol layer optical thickness of 0.225 at 0.865 μm. The retrieved aerosol optical thicknesses over clouds agree quantitatively with the closest ones retrieved over clear-sky ocean (±0.04 as a maximum departure), demonstrating the value of the method. This innovative technique based solely on passive measurements is expected to provide a better understanding of aerosol properties in regions where significant cloud cover usually prevents the retrieval of aerosol optical thickness. As such, this new retrieval method can provide significant and valuable information about the radiative impact of clouds and aerosols, especially where they can potentially interact strongly with each other.

Besides their strong contribution to weather forecast improvement through data assimilation, thermal infrared sounders onboard polar-orbiting platforms are now playing a key role for monitoring atmospheric composition changes. The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) instrument developed by the French space agency (CNES) and launched by EUMETSAT onboard the Metop satellite series is providing essential inputs for weather forecasting and pollution/climate monitoring owing to its smart combination of large horizontal swath, good spectral resolution and high radiometric performance. EUMETSAT is currently preparing the next polar-orbiting program (EPS-SG) with the Metop-SG satellite series that should be launched around 2020. In this framework, CNES is studying the concept of a new instrument, the IASI-New Generation (IASI-NG), characterized by an improvement of both spectral and radiometric characteristics as compared to IASI, with three objectives: (i) continuity of the IASI/Metop series; (ii) improvement of vertical resolution; and (iii) improvement of the accuracy and detection threshold for atmospheric and surface components. In this paper, we show that an improvement of spectral resolution and radiometric noise fulfil these objectives by leading to (i) a better vertical coverage in the lower part of the troposphere, thanks to the increase in spectral resolution; and (ii) an increase in the accuracy of the retrieval of several thermodynamic, climate and chemistry variables, thanks to the improved signal-to-noise ratio as well as less interference between the signatures of the absorbing species in the measured radiances. The detection limit of several atmospheric species is also improved. We conclude that IASI-NG has the potential to strongly benefit the numerical weather prediction, chemistry and climate communities now connected through the European GMES/Copernicus initiative.

The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) mission, and in particular the Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observations–Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) instrument, has the advantage of being able to measure simultaneously the same field of view in different spectral ranges with a high spectral resolution. These features allow studying the benefits of using multispectral measurements to improve the CO2 and CH4 retrievals. In order to quantify the impact of the spectral synergy on the retrieval accuracy, we performed an information content (IC) analysis from simulated spectra corresponding to the three infrared bands of TANSO-FTS. The advantages and limitations of using thermal and shortwave infrared simultaneously are discussed according to surface type and state vector composition. The IC is then used to determine the most informative spectral channels for the simultaneous retrieval of CO2 and CH4. The results show that a channel selection spanning the three infrared bands can improve the computation time and retrieval accuracy. Therefore, a selection of less than 700 channels from the thermal infrared (TIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands allows retrieving CO2 and CH4 simultaneously with a similar accuracy to using all channels together to retrieve each gas separately.

This article is the second in a series of studies investigating the benefits of multispectral measurements to improve the atmospheric parameter retrievals. In the first paper, we presented an information content (IC) analysis from the thermal infrared (TIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands of Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observations–Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) instrument dedicated to greenhouse gas retrieval in clear sky conditions. This second paper presents the potential of the spectral synergy from TIR to visible for aerosol characterization, and their impact on the retrieved CO2 and CH4 column concentrations. The IC is then used to determine the most informative spectral channels for the simultaneous retrieval of greenhouse gas total columns and aerosol parameters. The results show that a channel selection spanning the four bands can improve the computation time and retrieval accuracy. Therefore, the spectral synergy allows obtaining up to almost seven different aerosol parameters, which is comparable to the most informative dedicated instruments. Moreover, a channel selection from the TIR to visible bands allows retrieving CO2 and CH4 total columns simultaneously in the presence of one aerosol layer with a similar accuracy to using all channels together to retrieve each gas separately in clear sky conditions.