Charlie: Your statement: "Whereas I suspect the quantity you are trying to name is the height above which enough photons are emitted/scattered into a satellite sensor to trigger the detection algorithm to identify the presence of a cloud." is a decent description of our product. The "radiative center" height/air pressure is derived after a cloud is detected and our retrieval algorithm has determined a cloud temperature based upon complex logic described by Minnis et al. The "cloud detection" that you reference is independent from the height retrieval in our framework. I've never heard of IR cloud height being based on any other satellite channel(s) than the ~11 micron region or a combination of 11 micron and CO2 (13+ micron), so I cannot speculate how such a retrieval that you describe would perform.
Given this description, what standard name would you suggest for my type of product? Kris ========================================================= Kristopher Bedka Senior Research Scientist Science Systems & Applications, Inc. @ NASA Langley Research Center Climate Science Branch 1 Enterprise Parkway, Suite 200 Hampton, VA 23666 Primary Office Phone: (757) 864-5798 Secondary Office Phone: (757) 951-1920 Fax: (757) 951-1902 [email protected] ========================================================= -----Original Message----- From: Charlie Zender <[email protected]> Organization: University of California, Irvine Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 1:40 PM To: CF Metadata Mail List <[email protected]>, "Bedka, Kristopher M. (LARC-E302)[SCIENCE SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS, INC]" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: new standard name requests Hello Kristopher, The proposed names seem to contain an ambiguity: > We thought the "cloud radiative center" terminology was more > descriptive, but not as widely used as "effective" What exactly is cloud radiative center? It sounds like it should mean the geometric average of the cloud base and height retrieved from upward and downward-looking radiometers (below and above the cloud, respectively) at a certain wavelength (somehow indicated in the name or an attribute). Whereas I suspect the quantity you are trying to name is the height above which enough photons are emitted/scattered into a satellite sensor to trigger the detection algorithm to identify the presence of a cloud. This would be approximately optical depth unity from cloud top. Is this what you intend to name? In any case that height depends strongly on wavelength. IR and visible instruments would produce different heights. Might even different IR channels (10 um, 11 um, 12 um) produce significantly different heights? Wouldn't that be ambiguous? And might it not be better to indicate the wavelength in the name or an attribute? Best, Charlie -- Charlie Zender, Earth System Sci. & Computer Sci. University of California, Irvine 949-891-2429 )'( _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
