When a wildfire complex becomes pyroconvective, the smoke plume can reach the upper troposphere and directly impact ice clouds. Of particular scientific interest to me: what is the impact of smoke on ice cloud properties? This blog serves to catalogue such extreme wildfire events occurring around the world in 2013 and provides some background for each event. With contributions from major scientific groups (NASA, Naval Research Lab, NOAA, Canadian Meteorological Centre, others), this blog provides geostationary imagery animations, Aerosol Index maps from OMPS, cloud imagery from AVHRR, MODIS, and VIIRS, and more. Sometimes spectacular photos are sent in by interested viewers - these really help tell the story. We hope to explore this topic in great detail in the future.

Ice Cloud Bulk Scattering Models - New Models Available!

Spectral models from the UV to the Far-IR (Updated July 2013): Provides access to ice cloud bulk scattering models at each of 445 discrete wavelengths ranging from 0.2 µm to 100 µm, both with and without the full phase matrix. Individual sets of spectral models are provided based on (1) solid columns only, (2) the aggregate of solid columns only, and (3) a general habit mixture that employs nine ice habits (droxtals, plates, solid/hollow columns, solid/hollow bullet rosettes, small/large aggregate of plates and an aggregate of columns). These models are based on randomly oriented particle calculations for severely roughened ice particles.

A netCDF file for each set of models is available that provides microphysical and single-scattering properties including the full phase matrix; each is about 55 MB compressed.

Separate files are also available that provide the spectral models over the full wavelength range but without the phase matrix (i.e., only the asymmetry parameter is provided). These files are quite small, about 250 KB each.

Due to community interest, these models are being made available before a formal paper has been submitted to document the latest work. This should not pose a problem as the methodology was published in 2011 for shortwave models. A new paper will be provided as soon as it is in better shape.

Imager Models: Provides access to bulk scattering models for about 36 different polar-orbiting and geostationary imagers; models include integration over the imager-specific channel spectral response functions and are based on severely roughened ice particles. Models provide the intensity (i.e., the scattering phase function) but not the full phase matrix.

Microphysical Data: Provides access to the in situ data for more than 14,000 particle size distributions from 11 field campaigns (and increasing over time).

Shortwave Spectral Models: Provides access to ice cloud bulk scattering models at individual wavelengths from 0.4 µm to 3 µm in wavelength at 0.01 µm resolution; based on severely roughened ice particles. Models provide the intensity (i.e., the scattering phase function) but not the full phase matrix.

Old Version 2 models: still available but strongly recommend Version 3 models