About this Research Topic

Background

Planning a research satellite mission involves defining: i) science objectives; ii) instrument requirements; iii) suitable retrievals algorithms; and iv) methods to assess how well the objectives can be realized; all within a well-defined budget. The pre-launch objective assessment phase represents a crucial and invaluable step for defining and justifying a mission. Yet, despite their importance, their results are generally not readily accessible to researchers who are not involved directly in their executions.

Aerosols interact with radiation directly and indirectly via perturbations to macro- and micro-physical properties of clouds. The resulting impacts on regional and global radiation budgets can both perturb radiative forcing induced by changing greenhouse gas concentrations, and determine cloud feedback strengths. Observing how clouds and aerosols influence atmospheric radiative transfer is a key element in understanding how Earth will respond to anthropogenic modifications. As clouds and aerosols influence radiation budgets at local to global scales, satellite observations are indispensable research tools.

In order to infer the vertical properties of clouds and aerosols and their impacts on radiation budgets, multiple instruments are required to make simultaneous observations. Specifically, the combination of active and passive sensors, combined with sensors designed to infer Earth’s radiation budget, within NASA’s A-Train constellation, have facilitated a veritable paradigm-shift in observing and understanding the roles of clouds and aerosols in weather and climatic change. The goal of this research topic is to cover pre-launch studies being conducted for NASA’s Aerosol and Cloud, Convection and Precipitation (ACCP) and the ESA/JAXA EarthCARE satellite programmes.

Areas to be covered in this research topic may include, but not limited to
• relate science objectives of a satellite mission to the closing of gaps in our understanding of clouds, aerosols, and radiation in the weather-climate systems;
• understand the capabilities of multi-instrument satellite observations and associated retrieval algorithms to infer cloud and aerosol properties so as to realize the science objectives of a mission;
• estimate uncertainties in remotely-sensed cloud and aerosol properties, and radiative fluxes derived from multi- and single-sensor algorithms;
• investigate the roles of radiation measurements to constrain cloud and aerosol property retrievals (i.e., radiative closure);
• relate instantaneous aerosol and cloud properties inferred from observations of limited spatial coverage to regional and global radiation budgets;
• investigate sampling issues such as the trade-off between vertical profiles inferred via nadir-viewing and vertically-integrated properties inferred over wider swaths
• Design and implementation of Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) to assess the impact of aerosol, clouds and precipitation on climate, weather and air quality.
• Modeling and data assimilation of aerosol, clouds and precipitation measurements.

Keywords: pre-launch studies, EarthCARE, Active Sensors, Passive Sensors, Satellite Mission, Remote Sensing, Aerosol, Cloud, Convection, Precipitation, ACCP

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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