Clouds over the summertime Sahara: an evaluation of Met Office retrievals from Meteosat Second Generation using airborne remote sensing

Kealy, John C.; Marenco, Franco; Marsham, John H.; Garcia-Carreras, Luis; Francis, Pete N.; Cooke, Michael C.; Hocking, James

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5789-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5789-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5789-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 9

Research article

|

11 May 2017

Research article |

| 11 May 2017

Clouds over the summertime Sahara: an evaluation of Met Office retrievals from Meteosat Second Generation using airborne remote sensing

John C. Kealy, Franco Marenco, John H. Marsham, Luis Garcia-Carreras, Pete N. Francis, Michael C. Cooke, and James Hocking

Download

Final revised paper (published on 11 May 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 11 Nov 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Kealy et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Dec 2016
- AC1: 'Response to comments from Anonymous Referee #2', John Kealy, 24 Feb 2017
RC2: 'Review of Kealy et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Jan 2017
- AC2: 'Response to comments from Anonymous Referee #1', John Kealy, 24 Feb 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by John Kealy on behalf of the Authors (24 Feb 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (04 Mar 2017) by Jui-Yuan Christine Chiu

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (06 Mar 2017)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (10 Apr 2017)

ED: Publish as is (10 Apr 2017) by Jui-Yuan Christine Chiu

Download

Article (5948 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

Using novel methods of cloud detection from aircraft data over the Sahara desert, we evaluate the performance of the Meteosat satellite in measuring cloud properties: namely, the cloud mask and the cloud-top height. We find that the cloud mask can justifiably be used for many applications (such as creating a detailed Saharan cloud climatology), and we also discuss its limitations. As for the cloud-top height, we show that the dataset cannot yet be considered robust in this part of the world.