Information Content of Ice Cloud Properties from Multi-Spectral, -Angle and -Polarization Observations

Ice clouds play an important role in the Earth’s radiation budget, while their microphysical and optical properties remain one of the major uncertainties in remote sensing and atmospheric studies. Many satellite-based multi-spectral, -angle and -polarization instruments have been launched in recent years, and it is unclear how these observations can be used to improve the understanding of ice cloud properties. This study discusses the impacts of multi-spectral, -angle and -polarization observations on ice cloud property retrievals by performing a theoretical information content (IC) analysis. Ice cloud properties, including the cloud optical thickness (COT), particle effective radius (Re) and particle habit (defined by the aspect ratio (AR) and the degree of surface roughness level (σ)), are considered. An accurate polarized radiative transfer model is used to simulate the top-of-atmosphere intensity and polarized observations at the cloud-detecting wavelengths of interest. The ice cloud property retrieval accuracy should be improved with the additional information from multi-spectral, -angle and -polarization observations, which is verified by the increased degrees of freedom for signal (DFS). Polarization observations at spectral wavelengths (i.e., 0.87 and 2.13 µm) are helpful in the improvement of ice cloud property retrievals, especially for small-sized particles. An optimal scheme to retrieve ice cloud properties is to comprise radiance intensity information at the 0.87, 1.24, 1.64 and 2.13 µm channels and polarization information (the degree of linear polarization, DOLP) at the 0.87 and 2.13 µm channels. As observations from multiple angles added, DFS clearly increases, while it becomes almost saturated when the number of angles reaches three. Besides, the retrieval of Re exhibits larger uncertainties, and the improvement in total DFS by adding multi-spectral, -angle and -polarization observations is mainly attributed to the improvement of Re retrieval. Our findings will benefit the future instrument design and the improvement in cloud property retrieval algorithms based on multi-spectral, -angle, and -polarization imagers.