Explanation of Software for Generating Simulated Observations For the gmao osse prototype By
Consideration of effects of clouds on IR radiances
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3.1 Consideration of effects of clouds on IR radiancesTransmittance of IR radiation through the atmosphere is strongly affected by clouds. The modeling of scattering, absorption, and transmittance of radiation by clouds is still in its infancy, especially regarding modeling using computational algorithms fast enough to produce the hundreds of millions of observations required for the OSSE in a reasonable time. Even if such algorithms are available, their performance for a wide range of cloud distributions, particularly for optically thin clouds should first be demonstrated. For the next version of the observation simulations we will explore what possible software may exist for this purpose, but in the meantime, for a variety of additional reasons, we will use a simpler approach. Currently, the GSI only assimilates what it believes to be radiances unaffected by clouds. If clouds are present, they are either negligibly thin or far enough below the region from where the radiation is effectively emitted. For those cloud-affected observations that are not discarded by the GSI quality-control procedure, differences between cloud free and the real cloud-affected transmittance effectively are considered as an error of representativness (i.e., specifically error in the observation operator). Thus, even if an accurate radiative transfer model is used to simulate the effects of clouds on radiance observations from the nature run, most of that extra effort will simply be discarded as the GSI detects large differences with its cloud free calculation from the background. Those observations only weakly affected by clouds will pass the quality checks, affecting the distribution of “errors” in the observations as considered by the GSI. The effects of a thick cloud can easily be modeled, since in this case it may be considered as a black body. Thus, a thick elevated cloud appears the same as an elevated surface as far as IR is concerned. IR channels that normally peak lower in the atmosphere will therefore appear much colder. Channels that normally peak much above the cloud level will remain unaffected by the “elevated” surface. Thus, in version P1, the effects of clouds on IR radiation are introduced by simply setting the cloud top temperatures to the atmospheric temperatures at their elevations, and informing the radiative transfer model that the surface is at that level. Thus, the gross effects of clouds are modeled without using a radiative transfer model that explicitly considers clouds. The use of this gross modeling is primarily to obtain a realistic count of cloud-free observations, as a function of radiance channel and consistent with the distribution of clouds in the nature run. Effects of thin clouds on the radiances are handled by appropriately tuning the model that adds representativeness plus instrument errors (see section 4). At this time, the distributions of cloud-related fields provided in the nature run (specifically profiles of liquid and ice water contents and cloud fractions) have not been sufficiently validated regarding their effects on IR radiances, especially in the presence of only thin clouds. Although examination of time and zonal mean fields of some measures of cloud content in the nature run is useful, their agreement with nature does not ensure that realistic cloud effects will be obtained when they are considered by a radiative transfer model that includes them, even if that model is a good one. While we believe that the cloud related fields in the nature run are much more realistic than in the former NCEP/ECMWF OSSE, we expect that some important aspects may be unrealistic, especially regarding the prevalence of high thin clouds. Also, the nature run fields refer to averages or the centers of roughly 35 km square boxes, but clear holes may be present for some observations to be unaffected. In order to expedite the development work in the light of all the above reasons, in version P1 we have included a simple tunable scheme to incorporate effects of clouds in the IR simulated observations. This scheme uses a stochastic function to determine whether radiances are cloud affected, where the probability of that being the case is a function of the fractional cloud cover at 3 levels provided by the nature run data set.  
Figure 3.1: The tunable algorithm for specifying whether a cloud that may effect radiance transmission is in the field of view of a simulated satellite observation. Three levels of clouds are considered; low, medium, and high (height) clouds. In the nature run data set, these correspond to pressure ranges p > 0.8 ps, 0.45ps <= p <= 0.8ps, and p < 0.45 ps, respectively, where ps is the surface pressure at that location. In version P1 here, the presence of each type of cloud is determined by the algorithm described in Fig.3.1. This particular form for the probability functions was chosen because it is both simple and tunable. The four tunable parameters, a, b, c, and sigma are specified for each instrument type: An instrument with small viewing footprint has a greater chance of encountering a hole in the clouds than one with a larger footprint. The cloud top pressure is specified as a fraction of surface pressure (sigma = p/ps) so that low clouds can be present below p=500 hPa over high topography, such as over Tibet. The probability function used by this algorithm is piecewise linear as shown in Fig. 3.2. If the cloud fraction for a particular level is less than or equal to parameter a, then the field of view is defined as free of clouds at that level. If it is greater than or equal to parameter c, then it is definitely cloud contaminated. If neither of these conditions hold, then the probability P of a cloud being present is between 0 and 1, and b is then the value of the cloud fraction associated with a cloud-contamination probability of 0.5. In this case, whether a contaminating cloud is declared present is determined by drawing a random number 0 
Figure 3.2: Graph of the probability of a significant cloud being in the field of view given the cloud fraction for tuning parameters a=0.1, b=0.5, and c=0.7. What matters is where the cloud tops are, so first this procedure is done for high clouds, then for middle, and last for low. If a cloud is declared, then sigma is specified as given in the table for that level cloud and clouds at lower levels are not considered. If no radiatively significant clouds are declared present, sigma=1 is specified, indicating that the effective radiative surface is the true surface. In this procedure there are 12 parameters that can be adjusted. Since we as yet have little experience with tuning these, we offer no guidance at this time. We have tried varying them, however, to see what impact they have on data quality control in GSI and their effects appear to behave as designed. The question of whether this tuning will be sufficient to obtain the degree of validation that we hope is yet to be answered. Directory: exper exper -> No: 1 Dirk Smit Shell Chief Scientist for Geophysics exper -> Title: 6 Technical it innovation in Shell: Subsurface insights to locate more energy resources exper -> Tel: 0212 358 1540 ext. 1421 Fax: 0212 287 2465 exper -> Fiu/awc speech exper -> Version history Version exper -> Experimental Amateur-Built Operating Limitations exper -> Experiment 5 Analog Computer (Part 2) Introduction exper -> School of computer science and engineering expert lectures jan 2015 – June 2015 exper -> 15th May 2015, The Atrium, University of South Wales Cardiff Minutes Download 167.78 Kb. Share with your friends:
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