Inferring optical depth of broken clouds from Landsat data

Abstract

Optical depths τpp for broken, shallow clouds over ocean were inferred from Landsat cloud reflectances Rcld (0.83 μm) with horizontal resolution of 28.5 m. The values τpp were obtained by applying an inverse, homogeneous, plane-parallel radiance model to each pixel value of Rcld. The primary objective of this study was to estimate optical depth errors incurred by the homogeneous, plane-parallel, independent pixel paradigm. This was achieved by computing reflectances Rmc with a 3D Monte Carlo photon transport algorithm that employed τpp and cloud geometric thicknesses h > 0. -from Authors