This experiment occured in September, 1996, centered over Everglades City, FL. It ran for 21 days. The satellite analyses shown here were made specifically for this experiment at higher space and time resolution than the Wisconsin HIRS Cloud Climatology. They have not been continue after 22 September, 1996.
Cloud analyses were made from two satellite instruments, 1) the NOAA HIRS which is also used for the global climatology, and 2) the GOES 8 Sounder. These instruments both have IR channels in the partially absorbing CO2 region of 13-15 microns. The technique is described in Wylie, D.P., W. P. Menzel, H. M. Woolf, K. I. Strabala, 1994: Four Years of Global Cirrus Cloud Statistics Using HIRS., J. of Climate, 7, 1972-1986.
Both sensors were used to estimate the Cloud Height and
Effective Emissivity. Visible wavelength optical depths also have been estimated
from the Effective Emissivity using the following relationship.
Vis O.D. = 2*IR O.D. = Ln(1.0 - Effective Emissivity)
For each day of the experiment the following displays have been made.
The times of the analyses were choosen to coincide with MISTI satellite overpasses, aircraft flights, and ground based lidar data. The University of Wisconsin Lidar data can be found on a separate web page, however, some of the images are repeated here for making comparisons.