NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Variability present at a satellite instrument sampling scale (small-scale variability) has been neglected in earlier simulations of atmospheric and cloud property change retrievals using spatially and temporally averaged spectral radiances. The effects of small-scale variability in the atmospheric change detection process are evaluated in this study. To simulate realistic atmospheric variability, top-of-the-atmosphere nadir-view longwave spectral radiances are computed at a high temporal (instantaneous) resolution with a 20-km fieldof-view using cloud properties retrieved from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements, along with temperature humidity profiles obtained from reanalysis. Specifically, the effects of the variability on the necessary conditions for retrieving atmospheric changes by a linear regression are tested. The percentage error in the annual 108 zonal mean spectral radiance difference obtained by assuming linear combinations of individual perturbations expressed as a root-mean-square (RMS) difference computed over wavenumbers between 200 and 2000 cm21 is 10%–15% for most of the 108 zones. However, if cloud fraction perturbation is excluded, the RMS difference decreases to less than 2%. Monthly and annual 108 zonal mean spectral radiances change linearly with atmospheric property perturbations, which occur when atmospheric properties are perturbed by an amount approximately equal to the variability of the108 zonal monthly deseasonalized anomalies or by a climate-model-predicted decadal change. Nonlinear changes in the spectral radiances of magnitudes similar to those obtained through linear estimation can arise when cloud heights and droplet radii in water cloud change. The spectral shapes computed by perturbing different atmospheric and cloud properties are different so that linear regression can separate individual spectral radiance changes from the sum of the spectral radiance change. When the effects of small-scale variability are treated as noise, however, the error in retrieved cloud properties is large. The results suggest the importance of considering small-scale variability in inferring atmospheric and cloud property changes from the satellite-observed zonally and annually averaged spectral radiance difference.