Engineering topics

King, Michael D.

Publications and source records attributed to King, Michael D..

At least 109 records · Page 6

NASA NTRS1995

Remote sensing of flooding in the U.S. upper Midwest during the summer of 1993

The U.S. upper Midwest was subjected to severe flooding during the summer of 1993. Heavy rainfall in the Mississippi River basin from April through July caused flooding on many Midwest rivers, including the Mississippi, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas Rivers. The flood crest of 15.1 m at St. Louis, Missouri, on 1 August 1993 was the highest ever measured, surpassing the previous record of 13.2 m set on 28 April 1973. Damage estimates include at least 47 flood-related deaths and a total damage cost of $12 billion. Remotely sensed imagery of severe flooding in the U.S. Midwest was obtained under cloud-free skies on 29 July 1993 by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Airborne Simulator (MAS). The MAS is a newly developed scanning spectrometer with 50 spectral bands in the wavelength range 0.55-14.3 micrometers. Estimation of the total flooded area in the MAS scene acquired near St. Louis was accomplished by comparing the MAS scene to a Landsat-5 thematic mapper (TM) scene of the same area acquired on 14 April 1984 in nonflood conditions. For comparison, the MAS band centered at 0.94 micrometers and the TM band centered at 1.65 micrometers were selected because of the high contrast seen in these bands between land and water-covered surfaces. An estimate of the area covered by water in the MAS and TM scenes was obtained by developing land/water brightness thresholds from histograms of the MAS and TM digital image data. Afetr applying the thresholds, the difference between the area covered by water in the MAS and TM scenes, and hence the flooded area in the MAS scene, was found to be about 396 sq km, or about 153 square miles.

Gumley, Liam E.↗

NASA NTRS1994

MODIS airborne simulator visible and near-infrared calibration, 1992 ASTEX field experiment. Calibration version: ASTEX King 1.0

Calibration of the visible and near-infrared (near-IR) channels of the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) is derived from observations of a calibrated light source. For the 1992 Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX) field deployment, the calibrated light source was the NASA Goddard 48-inch integrating hemisphere. Tests during the ASTEX deployment were conducted to calibrate the hemisphere and then the MAS. This report summarizes the ASTEX hemisphere calibration, and then describes how the MAS was calibrated from the hemisphere data. All MAS calibration measurements are presented and determination of the MAS calibration coefficients (raw counts to radiance conversion) is discussed. In addition, comparisons to an independent MAS calibration by Ames personnel using their 30-inch integrating sphere is discussed.

Arnold, G. Thomas↗

NASA NTRS1994

MODIS airborne simulator visible and near-infrared calibration, 1991 FIRE-Cirrus field experiment. Calibration version: FIRE King 1.1

Calibration of the visible and near-infrared channels of the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) is derived from observations of a calibrated light source. For the 1991 FIRE-Cirrus field experiment, the calibrated light source was the NASA Goddard 48-inch integrating hemisphere. Laboratory tests during the FIRE Cirrus field experiment were conducted to calibrate the hemisphere and from the hemisphere to the MAS. The purpose of this report is to summarize the FIRE-Cirrus hemisphere calibration, and then describe how the MAS was calibrated from observations of the hemisphere data. All MAS calibration measurements are presented, and determination of the MAS calibration coefficients (raw counts to radiance conversion) is discussed. Thermal sensitivity of the MAS visible and near-infrared calibration is also discussed. Typically, the MAS in-flight is 30 to 60 degrees C colder than the room temperature laboratory calibration. Results from in-flight temperature measurements and tests of the MAS in a cold chamber are given, and from these, equations are derived to adjust the MAS in-flight data to what the value would be at laboratory conditions. For FIRE-Cirrus data, only channels 3 through 6 were found to be temperature sensitive. The final section of this report describes comparisons to an independent MAS (room temperature) calibration by Ames personnel using their 30-inch integrating sphere.

Arnold, G. Thomas↗

NASA NTRS1993

Intercomparison of MAS, AVIRIS, and HIS data from FIRE cirrus 2

The NASA ER-2 flight on 5 Dec. 1991 is unique among the FIRE Cirrus 2 missions in that data were acquired simultaneously by the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS), the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), and the High Resolution Interferometer Sounder (HIS). These data represent a unique source of information about the spatial and spectral properties of cirrus clouds. The MAS is a new instrument which will aid in defining algorithms and building an understanding of the ability of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to remotely sense atmospheric conditions for assessing global change. In order to establish confidence in the absolute calibration accuracy of the MAS radiances, an inter-comparison of MAS radiances with AVIRIS and HIS has been undertaken.

Gumley, Liam E.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Optical properties of marine stratocumulus clouds modified by ships

Results are presented of an application of the diffusion domain method to multispectral solar radiation measurements obtained deep within a marine stratocumulus cloud layer modified by pollution from ships. In situ airborne measurements of the relative angular distribution of scattered radiation are compared to known asymptotic expressions for the intensity field deep within an optically thick cloud layer. Analytical expressions relating the ratio of the nadir-to-zenith intensities to surface reflectance, similarity parameter, and scaled optical depth beneath the aircraft flight level are used to analyze measurements obtained with the cloud absorption radiometer mounted on the University of Washington's C-131A research aircraft. It is shown that the total optical thickness of the cloud layer increased in the ship tracks, in contrast to the similarity parameter, which decreased. The decrease in absorption was a direct consequence of the reduction in cloud droplet size that occurred within the ship tracks.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Comparative accuracy of diffuse radiative properties computed using selected multiple scattering approximations

Computational results have been obtained for the spherical albedo, global transmission, and global absorption of plane-parallel layers composed of cloud droplets. These computations, obtained using the doubling method for the entire range of single scattering albedos and for optical depths between 0.1 and 100, are compared with corresponding results obtained using selected multiple scattering approximations. The spherical albedo and global absorption computed using asymptotic theory are found to be accurate to better than 5 percent for all values of the single scattering albedo, provided the optical thickness exceeds about 2. The diffuse two-stream approximations have relative accuracies that are much worse than 5 percent for the spherical albedo over most of the parameter space, yet are accurate to within 5 percent in the global absorption when the absorption is significant. The integrated delta-Eddington scheme appears to be the most suitable model over the entire range of variables, generally producing relative errors of less than 5 percent in both the spherical albedo and global absorption.

HARSHVARDHAN↗

NASA NTRS1993

Global monitoring of atmospheric properties by the EOS MODIS

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) being developed for the Earth Observing System (EOS) is well suited to the global monitoring of atmospheric properties from space. Among the atmospheric properties to be examined using MODIS observations, clouds are especially important, since they are a strong modulator of the shortwave and longwave components of the earth's radiation budget. A knowledge of cloud properties (such as optical thickness and effective radius) and their variation in space and time, which are our task objectives, is also crucial to studies of global climate change. In addition, with the use of related airborne instrumentation, such as the Cloud Absorption Radiometer (CAR) and MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) in intensive field experiments (both national and international campaigns, see below), various types of surface and cloud properties can be derived from the measured bidirectional reflectances. These missions have provided valuable experimental data to determine the capability of narrow bandpass channels in examining the Earth's atmosphere and to aid in defining algorithms and building an understanding of the ability of MODIS to remotely sense atmospheric conditions for assessing global change. Therefore, the primary task objective is to extend and expand our algorithm for retrieving the optical thickness and effective radius of clouds from radiation measurements to be obtained from MODIS. The secondary objective is to obtain an enhanced knowledge of surface angular and spectral properties that can be inferred from airborne directional radiance measurements.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Directional and spectral reflectance of the Kuwait oil-fire smoke

The angular reflectance pattern of the Kuwait oil-fire smoke was measured from an aircraft at 13 discrete wavelengths between 0.5 and 2.3 microns. Measurements at 0.75 and 1.64 micron showed that the reflectance of the smoke layer was about 12 percent in the nadir direction, with considerable limb brightening toward the horizon. Furthermore, these observations revealed a backscattering maximum in the antisolar direction and an enhanced scattering near the rainbow direction. These characteristics suggest that the smoke layer 90 km downwind of the Kuwait oil fires was composed of a significant number of oil drizzle droplets that scatter solar radiation as a layer composed of spherical particles.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Remote sensing of cloud, aerosol, and water vapor properties from the moderate resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS)

The authors describe the status of MODIS-N and its companion instrument MODIS-T (tilt), a tiltable cross-track scanning spectrometer with 32 uniformly spaced channels between 0.410 and 0.875 micron. They review the various methods being developed for the remote sensing of atmospheric properties using MODIS, placing primary emphasis on the principal atmospheric applications of determining the optical, microphysical, and physical properties of clouds and aerosol particles from spectral reflection and thermal emission measurements. In addition to cloud and aerosol properties, MODIS-N will be used for determining the total precipitable water vapor and atmospheric stability. The physical principles behind the determination of each of these atmospheric products are described, together with an example of their application to aircraft and/or satellite measurements.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Determination of the optical thickness and effective particle radius of clouds from reflected solar radiation measurements. II - Marine stratocumulus observations

A multispectral scanning radiometer has been used to obtain measurements of the reflection function of marine stratocumulus clouds at 0.75 micron and at 1.65 and 2.16 microns. These observations were obtained from the NASA ER-2 aircraft as part of the FIRE, conducted off the coast of southern California during July 1987. Multispectral images of the reflection function were used to derive the optical thickness and the effective particle radius of stratiform cloud layers on four days. In addition to the radiation measurements, in situ microphysical measurements were obtained from an aircraft. In this paper, the remote sensing results are compared with in situ observations, which show a good spatial correlation for both optical thickness and effective radius. These comparisons further show systematic differences between remote sensing and in situ values, with a tendency for remote sensing to overestimate the effective radius by about 2-3 microns, independent of particle radius. The optical thickness, in contrast, is somewhat overestimated for small optical thicknesses and underestimated for large optical thicknesses. An introduction of enhanced gaseous absorption at a wavelength of 2.16 microns successfully explains some of these observed discrepancies.

Nakajima, Teruyuki↗

NASA NTRS1990

Determination of the optical thickness and effective particle radius of clouds from reflected solar radiation measurements. I - Theory

A method is presented for determining the optical thickness and effective particle radius of stratiform cloud layers from reflected solar radiation measurements. A detailed study is presented which shows that the cloud optical thickness (tau c) and effective particle radius (r/e/) of water clouds can be determined solely from reflection function measurements at 0.75 micron and 2.16 microns, provided tau c is not less than 4 and r(e) is not less than 6 microns. For optically thin clouds, the retrieval becomes ambiguous, resulting in two possible solutions for the effective radius and optical thickness. Adding a third channel near 1.65 micron does not improve the situation noticeably, whereas the addition of a channel near 3.70 microns reduces the ambiguity in deriving the effective radius. The effective radius determined by the above procedure corresponds to the droplet radius at some optical depth within the cloud layer.

Nakajima, Teruyuki↗

NASA NTRS1990

Spectral absorption of marine stratocumulus clouds derived from in situ cloud radiation measurements

A multiwavelength scanning radiometer was used to measure the angular distribution of scattered radiation deep within a cloud layer at discrete wavelengths between 0.5 and 2.3 microns. The relative angular distribution of the intensity field at each wavelength is used to determine the similarity parameter, and hence single scattering albedo, of the cloud at that wavelength using the diffusion domain method. In addition to the spectral similarity parameter, the analysis provides a good estimate of the optical thickness of the cloud beneath the aircraft. In addition to the radiation measurements, microphysical and thermodynamic measurements were obtained from which the expected similarity parameter spectrum was calculated using accepted values of the refractive index of liquid water and the transmission function of water vapor. An analysis is presented for the results obtained for a 50 km section of clean marine stratocumulus clouds on 10 July 1987. These observations were obtained off the coast of California from the University of Washington Convair C-131A aircraft as part of the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE). A comparison of the experimentally-derived similarity parameter spectrum with that expected theoretically from the cloud droplet size distribution measured simultaneously from the aircraft is presented. The measurements and theory are in very close agreement for this case of clean maritime clouds.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Cloud optical parameters as derived from the multispectral cloud radiometer

Simultaneous measurements of the liquid water content and particle size have assumed an important role in cloud physics as they help elucidate the mechanism of cloud particle formation and the mechanism of air mass-mixing in stratus clouds. Such measurements can reveal the modification of cloud air masses by anthropogenic aerosol particles (Coakley et al. 1987, Durkee 1989). Studies of the climatic impact of these modification processes on cloud microphysics seems to be urgent for understanding mechanisms of climate change. General Circulation Model (GCM) simulations can be improved by introducing a parameterization of cloud optical properties in terms of integrated liquid water content (liquid water path) and particle size (Slingo 1989). Motivated by the above mentioned circumstances, remote sensing techniques were developed for simultaneously retrieving the cloud optical thickness and effective particle radius, from which the liquid water path can be inferred. Statistical features of the cloud optical thickness (or liquid water path) and effective particle size for marine stratocumulus clouds are presented. These results were obtained during 4 days (7, 10, 13, and 16 July 1987) of observations with the Multispectral Cloud Radiometer (ER-2) and the Thematic Mapper (LANDSAT-5) during the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE).

Nakajima, Teruyuki↗

NASA NTRS1990

Direct and remote sensing observations of the effects of ships on clouds

Under certain conditions ships can affect the structure of shallow overlying layer clouds. It has been suggested that this is due to particles emitted from the ships, which increase the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei in the air, which, in turn, increases the concentrations of cloud droplets and reduces the average size of the droplets. Two ship track signatures in stratus clouds were observed simultaneously from a satellite and from an aircraft. The airborne measurements showed that in the ship tracks the droplet sizes and concentrations, as well as the total concentrations of particles, were substantially different from those in adjacent clouds. Furthermore, in-situ solar radiation measurements showed a significant enhancement in the upwelling radiance within the ship tracks at visible wavelengths and a significant reduction in radiance at 2.2 micrometers. Remote sensing measurements from the NOAA-10 satellite showed the effects of these differences in cloud structure as an enhancement in cloud reflectivity at 0.63 and 3.7 micrometers. These observations support the contention that ship track signatures in clouds are produced primarily by particles generated by ships.

Radke, Lawrence F.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Optical properties of marine stratocumulus clouds modified by ship track effluents

The angular distribution of scattered radiation deep within a cloud layer was measured in marine stratocumulus clouds modified by the emissions from ships. These observations, obtained at thirteen discrete wavelengths between 0.5 and 2.3 microns, were obtained as the University of Washington Convair C-131A aircraft flew through a pair of roughly parallel ship tracks off the coast of southern California on 10 July 1987. In the first of these ship tracks, the cloud droplet concentration increased from 40 to 107/cu cm (125/cu cm in the second ship track). Simultaneous to this spectacular change, the aircraft measured interstitial aerosol (Aitken nucleus) concentration that increased from 400 to 1000/cu cm and cloud liquid water content that increased from 0.03 to 0.75 g/cu m. Broadband pyranometer measurements showed that the upwelling flux density increased from 150 to 280 W/sq m. These in-situ microphysics and broadband pyranometer results, together with AVHRR satellite images obtained with the NOAA-10 satellite, are described in detail by Radke et al., (1989). Internal scattered radiation measurements at selected wavelengths obtained with the cloud absorption radiometer (King et al., 1986) for a 100 km section of marine stratocumulus clouds containing these two ship track features are presented.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Cloud absorption properties as derived from airborne measurements of scattered radiation within clouds

Researchers briefly review the diffusion domain method for deriving the cloud similarity parameter and present preliminary analyses of the results thus far obtained. The presentation concentrates on the following points: (1) intercomparison of calibrated reflected intensities between the cloud absorption radiometer and the U.K. multispectral cloud radiometer; (2) quality control tests required to select those portions of an aircraft flight for which measurements are obtained within the diffusion domain; (3) case studies of the spectral similarity parameter of marine stratocumulus clouds; and comparisons of the experimentally-derived similarity parameter spectrum with that expected theoretically from the cloud droplet size distribution obtained from in situ observations.

King, Michael D.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Cloud optical parameters as derived from the multispectral cloud radiometer

Here, researchers analyze the data taken in the marine stratocumulus intensive field observation component of the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE), conducted off the California coast in July, 1987 using the Multispectral Cloud Radiometer (MCR). Researchers installed an efficient retrieval scheme for deriving the cloud optical thickness and droplet mode radius, and have described the behavior of the retrieval error. Generally the scheme can retrieve the optical thickness and mode radius adequately unless they are too small; the use of the forward scattering region is more sound than the use of the backscattering portion. Applying the method to real data, researchers derived the two-dimensional distribution of optical thickness and mode radius for a portion of one of the FIRE marine stratocumulus missions. In this case study, the droplet size showed a more uniform distribution than optical thickness with some correlation between large droplet size and small optical thickness. Although researchers can find microphysical reasons for these tendencies, they suspect that the remotely sensed droplet size may be overestimated. As a future problem, they will compare results with in situ data of the droplet size distribution. Also it will be very important to check several reasons why the droplet radius might be overestimated, e.g., soot contamination, effect of escaping photons from the lateral sides of broken clouds, and so on.

Nakajima, Eruyuki↗

NASA NTRS1990

Determination of the spectral absorption of solar radiation by marine stratocumulus clouds from airborne measurements within clouds

Results of the first experimental application of the diffusion domain method to the determination of the spectral similarity parameter, and hence the single scattering albedo, of clouds are presented. The angular distribution of scattered radiation deep within a cloud layer at discrete wavelengths between 0.5 and 2.3 microns was measured by a multiwavelength scanning radiometer. The relative angular distribution of the intensity field at each wavelength was used to determine the similarity parameter of the cloud at that wavelength utilizing the diffusion domain method. Results of the analysis are presented for a 50 km section of clean marine stratocumulus clouds over the coast of California on July 10, 1987. It is concluded that the measured absorption is close to, but persistently larger than, theoretical predictions.

King, Michael D.↗