Measurements of water vapor and high clouds over the Tibetan Plateau with the Terra MODIS instrument

Bo Cai Gao; Ping Yang; Guang Guo; Seon K. Park; Warren J. Wiscombe; Baode Chen

doi:10.1109/TGRS.2003.810704

Measurements of water vapor and high clouds over the Tibetan Plateau with the Terra MODIS instrument

Bo Cai Gao, Ping Yang, Guang Guo, Seon K. Park, Warren J. Wiscombe, Baode Chen

Department of Environmental Science & Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › peer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

The seasonal variations of water vapor and cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau are investigated using the recently available Level 3 monthly-mean atmospheric data products with a 1° × 1° latitude-longitude grid. The data products are derived from the multichannel imaging data acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra Spacecraft. It is shown that the water vapor concentration over the Tibetan Plateau is normally low, whereas high clouds (mainly cirrus clouds) over the Plateau occur quite frequently. On an annual scale, the water vapor concentration reaches its maximum in July and its minimum in January. During the summer season, the southeastern part of Tibetan Plateau, which can be affected by moistures originating from the Bay of Bengal and southeastern Asia. is slightly moister than the other parts of the Plateau. This observation is in agreement with the previous surface meteorological measurements by Chinese scientists from the 1950s to mid-1970s. The mean high-cloud reflectance over the Plateau reaches its maximum in April and minimum in November. This feature of high clouds over the Plateau has not been reported previously. The special channel centered at 1.375-μm on the MODIS instrument has allowed the observation. We present a plausible mechanism to explain the seasonal variations of high clouds over the Plateau. We expect that the water vapor and high-cloud measurements with MODIS can be used to improve the model initialization and validation for climate models involving the Tibetan Plateau and the nearby regions in Asia.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	895-900
Number of pages	6
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Volume	41
Issue number	4 PART II
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2003.810704
State	Published - Apr 2003

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received December 31, 2002; revised February 17, 2003. This research was supported by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. B.-C. Gao is with the Remote Sensing Division, Code 7212, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). P. Yang and G. Guo are with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 USA. S. K. Park is with the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Korea. W. J. Wiscombe is with the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA. B. Chen is with the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA and also with the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, University Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2003.810704

Keywords

Cirrus clouds
Meteorology
Remote sensing
Tibetan Plateau
Water vapor

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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title = "Measurements of water vapor and high clouds over the Tibetan Plateau with the Terra MODIS instrument",

abstract = "The seasonal variations of water vapor and cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau are investigated using the recently available Level 3 monthly-mean atmospheric data products with a 1° × 1° latitude-longitude grid. The data products are derived from the multichannel imaging data acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra Spacecraft. It is shown that the water vapor concentration over the Tibetan Plateau is normally low, whereas high clouds (mainly cirrus clouds) over the Plateau occur quite frequently. On an annual scale, the water vapor concentration reaches its maximum in July and its minimum in January. During the summer season, the southeastern part of Tibetan Plateau, which can be affected by moistures originating from the Bay of Bengal and southeastern Asia. is slightly moister than the other parts of the Plateau. This observation is in agreement with the previous surface meteorological measurements by Chinese scientists from the 1950s to mid-1970s. The mean high-cloud reflectance over the Plateau reaches its maximum in April and minimum in November. This feature of high clouds over the Plateau has not been reported previously. The special channel centered at 1.375-μm on the MODIS instrument has allowed the observation. We present a plausible mechanism to explain the seasonal variations of high clouds over the Plateau. We expect that the water vapor and high-cloud measurements with MODIS can be used to improve the model initialization and validation for climate models involving the Tibetan Plateau and the nearby regions in Asia.",

keywords = "Cirrus clouds, Meteorology, Remote sensing, Tibetan Plateau, Water vapor",

author = "Gao, {Bo Cai} and Ping Yang and Guang Guo and Park, {Seon K.} and Wiscombe, {Warren J.} and Baode Chen",

note = "Funding Information: Manuscript received December 31, 2002; revised February 17, 2003. This research was supported by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. B.-C. Gao is with the Remote Sensing Division, Code 7212, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). P. Yang and G. Guo are with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 USA. S. K. Park is with the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Korea. W. J. Wiscombe is with the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA. B. Chen is with the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA and also with the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, University Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2003.810704",

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AU - Guo, Guang

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AU - Wiscombe, Warren J.

AU - Chen, Baode

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received December 31, 2002; revised February 17, 2003. This research was supported by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. B.-C. Gao is with the Remote Sensing Division, Code 7212, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). P. Yang and G. Guo are with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 USA. S. K. Park is with the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Korea. W. J. Wiscombe is with the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA. B. Chen is with the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA and also with the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, University Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2003.810704

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N2 - The seasonal variations of water vapor and cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau are investigated using the recently available Level 3 monthly-mean atmospheric data products with a 1° × 1° latitude-longitude grid. The data products are derived from the multichannel imaging data acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra Spacecraft. It is shown that the water vapor concentration over the Tibetan Plateau is normally low, whereas high clouds (mainly cirrus clouds) over the Plateau occur quite frequently. On an annual scale, the water vapor concentration reaches its maximum in July and its minimum in January. During the summer season, the southeastern part of Tibetan Plateau, which can be affected by moistures originating from the Bay of Bengal and southeastern Asia. is slightly moister than the other parts of the Plateau. This observation is in agreement with the previous surface meteorological measurements by Chinese scientists from the 1950s to mid-1970s. The mean high-cloud reflectance over the Plateau reaches its maximum in April and minimum in November. This feature of high clouds over the Plateau has not been reported previously. The special channel centered at 1.375-μm on the MODIS instrument has allowed the observation. We present a plausible mechanism to explain the seasonal variations of high clouds over the Plateau. We expect that the water vapor and high-cloud measurements with MODIS can be used to improve the model initialization and validation for climate models involving the Tibetan Plateau and the nearby regions in Asia.

AB - The seasonal variations of water vapor and cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau are investigated using the recently available Level 3 monthly-mean atmospheric data products with a 1° × 1° latitude-longitude grid. The data products are derived from the multichannel imaging data acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra Spacecraft. It is shown that the water vapor concentration over the Tibetan Plateau is normally low, whereas high clouds (mainly cirrus clouds) over the Plateau occur quite frequently. On an annual scale, the water vapor concentration reaches its maximum in July and its minimum in January. During the summer season, the southeastern part of Tibetan Plateau, which can be affected by moistures originating from the Bay of Bengal and southeastern Asia. is slightly moister than the other parts of the Plateau. This observation is in agreement with the previous surface meteorological measurements by Chinese scientists from the 1950s to mid-1970s. The mean high-cloud reflectance over the Plateau reaches its maximum in April and minimum in November. This feature of high clouds over the Plateau has not been reported previously. The special channel centered at 1.375-μm on the MODIS instrument has allowed the observation. We present a plausible mechanism to explain the seasonal variations of high clouds over the Plateau. We expect that the water vapor and high-cloud measurements with MODIS can be used to improve the model initialization and validation for climate models involving the Tibetan Plateau and the nearby regions in Asia.

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ER -

Measurements of water vapor and high clouds over the Tibetan Plateau with the Terra MODIS instrument

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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