Comparison of POLDER apparent and corrected oxygen pressure to ARM/MMCR cloud boundary pressures

Abstract

POLDER (POLarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances) cloud oxygen pressures are compared to cloud boundary pressures obtained from the combination of Lidar and Millimeter Wave Cloud Radar ground measurements located at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. Without ground reflection correction, the apparent pressures are found to be closer to the mean cloud pressure than to the cloud top pressure. Nevertheless, for almost a quarter of our comparison cases the apparent pressure level is found to be below the cloud base level. This problem practically disappears applying a simple correction for the surface reflection effect. The corrected oxygen pressures are then found to be very close (12 hPa on average) to the mean cloud pressure.