Articles | Volume 17, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5789-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5789-2017
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

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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.
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