Retrieval of the vertical evolution of the cloud effective radius from the Chinese FY-4 (Feng Yun 4) next-generation geostationary satellites

Chen, Yilun; Chen, Guangcan; Cui, Chunguang; Zhang, Aoqi; Wan, Rong; Zhou, Shengnan; Wang, Dongyong; Fu, Yunfei

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1131-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1131-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1131-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

Research article

|

30 Jan 2020

Research article |

| 30 Jan 2020

Retrieval of the vertical evolution of the cloud effective radius from the Chinese FY-4 (Feng Yun 4) next-generation geostationary satellites

Yilun Chen, Guangcan Chen, Chunguang Cui, Aoqi Zhang, Rong Wan, Shengnan Zhou, Dongyong Wang, and Yunfei Fu

Data sets

Introducing the new generation of Chinese geostationary weather satellites, FENGYUN-4 (http://fy4.nsmc.org.cn/data/en/code/FY4A.html#AGRI) J. Yang, Z. Zhang, C. Wei, F. Lu, and Q. Guo https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0065.1

Short summary

The vertical evolution of the cloud effective radius reflects the precipitation-forming process. We developed an algorithm for retrieving it based on objective cloud-cluster identification rather than the subjective polygon of the conventional method. The profile shows completely different morphologies in different life stages of the cloud cluster, which is important in the characterization of the formation of precipitation and the temporal evolution of microphysical processes.