This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 7148, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, and the Conference Committee listing.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the EOS Aqua Spacecraft was launched on May 4, 2002. AIRS acquires hyperspectral infrared radiances in the 3.7-15.4 um spectral region with spectral resolution of better than 1200. Key channels from the AIRS Level 1B calibrated radiance product are currently assimilated into operational weather forecasts at NCEP and other international agencies. Additional Level 2 products for assimilation include the AIRS cloud cleared radiances and the geophysical retrieved temperature and water vapor profiles. The AIRS products are also used to validate climate model vertical and horizontal biases and transport of water vapor and key trace gases including Carbon Dioxide and Ozone. The wide variety of products available from the AIRS make it well suited to study processes affecting the interaction of these products.

An optimal cloud-clearing method using collocated MODIS clear pixels is applied to AIRS partly cloudy radiance. Temperature and humidity profiles with 100 layers are retrieved from cloud-free and cloud-cleared AIRS radiance. Using these retrieved profiles, atmospheric environment parameters (include Convective Available Potential Energy, CAPE; Convective Inhibition, CIN) and instability indices (include K index, Lifted Index, Showalter Index) are calculated and compared with that calculated from AIRS and ATOVS operational products and ECMWF analysis fields. These different datasets have different spatial resolution (both in vertical and in horizontal) and spectral resolution. Results show that spatial resolution have obviously influence to the calculations, the lower spatial resolution is likely to have some small energy region lost or reduce the calculation precision. And the profiles derived from partly cloudy area are more meaningful to weather events. The CAPE values of typhoon rain region show differences to that of trough region.

At the beginning of 2008, South of China experienced a disastrous low temperature, rain, snow, ice and sleet weather that is rare in the history. There are characteristics of abnormal circulation background and inevitable rule in this event, with the satellite data we try to find out the weather and climate reasons. This low temperature, rain, snow, ice and sleet event happened in the background of warm winter. Since the 1980s, the global temperature rose 0.6+0.2°C[1], while China has continuously witnessed 21 warm winters since the winter of 1986/1987 and the trend of cold wave showed a decrease situation. Since last summer, La Nina enhanced gradually, in Jan 2008, SST of mid east Pacific was 2°C higher than the average and La Nina hit its climax. The low temperature, rain, snow, ice and sleet event is an abnormal weather occurred in the abnormal climate background. According to the statistics of observation conducted by National Climate Center, during this event (Jan. 10- Feb. 3, 2008), the precipitation anomaly was 50% higher than the normal in mid and east part of south to Yangtze River, most part of south China, east and south part of southwest China, and that is 20% higher than the normal in mid and west part of south China, mid and north of Yunnan province, south of Sichuan province, while in the areas of north Guizhou province, northwest Hunan province, southwest Hubei province and Chongqing autonomous region, the precipitation was less than the average. The temperature in the areas such as mid and west of south to Yangtze River, mid and west of south China, east of southwest China was 2°C lower than the average and that in mid and east of Hubei province, most of Hunan and Guizhou provinces, north of Guangxi autonomous region was more than 4°C lower than the average. The freezing in the regions such as most of Hunan and Guizhou provinces, northwest of Jiangxi 10 lasted days, and in some parts exceeded 15 days, all above are extraordinary in the history. Using the data of Chinese FY2C meteorological satellite, with the products of NCEP, the satellite image features were investigated in this paper.

In this study, a simulated-annealing algorithm is combined with well known semi-analytical model for deep water's inherent optical properties (IOPs) parameters. The IOPs is an important factor in considering and evaluating water type, subsurface light field, turbidity and pigment concentration. A simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is a global optimum process that could be applied for non-linear optimization problem in which multiparameter are present. In this work, four parameters are presented: Chl, ag440, S and bbp550. We evaluate our approach with self-computed data and IOCCG data set. The comparison between the retrieved results and the measured coefficients suggests that the differences are close to the accuracy limitations, and the two sets of results are in nice agreement, so the inversion results can be accepted.

The Spectral Latent Heating (SLH) algorithm was developed to estimate latent heating profiles for the TRMM PR. The method uses PR information (precipitation top height, precipitation rates at the surface and melting level, and rain type) to select heating profiles from lookup tables. Lookup tables for the three rain types-convective, shallow stratiform, and anvil rain (deep stratiform with a melting level)-were derived from numerical simulations of tropical cloud systems from the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) utilizing a cloud-resolving model (CRM). The two-dimensional ("2D") CRM was used in the previous studies. The availability of exponentially increasing computer capabilities has resulted in three-dimensional ("3D") CRM simulations for multiday periods becoming increasing prevalent. In this study, we compare lookup tables from the 2D and 3D simulations. The lookup table from 3D simulations results in less agreement between the SLH-retrieved heating and sounding-based one for the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX). The level of SLH-estimated maximum heating is lower than that of the sounding-derived one. This is explained by the fact that the 3D lookup table produces stronger convective heating and weaker stratiform heating above the melting level that 2D counterpart. Condensate generated in and carried over from the convective region is larger in 3D than in 2D, and condensate that is produced by the stratiform region's own upward motion is smaller in 3D than 2D.

A new method for mapping shallow water topography surface currents from SAR image is introduced based on the shallow water topography SAR imaging mechanism. M4S (presented by Romeiser R.) was used to forward simulate radar signatures of the oceanic features over the ocean surface. The first guessed surface currents can be estimated from the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) of the shallow water topography profile in the SAR image according to the Apers-Hennings linear theory, the NRCS induced by the varying shallow water topography surface currents could be simulated by the forward simulating model. The wind speed and shallow water topography surface currents gradients are modified using the iterative method until the simulated radar signals close to the NRCS calculated from SAR image. By this method, the wind speed and the surface currents can be retrieved finally. This method is tested on an ERS-2 SAR image in the Taiwan Shoal. Results show that the simulated shallow water topography radar signal is consistent with the NRCS extracted from SAR image, and their correlation coefficient is up to 90%, which means that this method is convergent and applicable.

The Precipitation Radar (PR) data acquired by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) over its 10 years of observation can be used to show the monthly rainfall patterns over the Himalayas. To validate and adjust these patterns, we used a dense network of rain gauges to measure daily precipitation over Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, and China. We then compared TRMM/PR and rain gauge data in 0.05-degree grid cells (an approximately 5.5-km mesh). Compared to the rain gauge observations, PR systematically underestimated precipitation by 28% to 38% in summer (July-September). Monthly PR climatology was adjusted based on the monthly regressions between the 2 sets of data, and depicted.

Accumulation of pollution over the southern Arabian Sea has been documented in numerous studies that followed the INDOEX field project of 1992. In this paper we show several examples of this feature from the MODIS/CALIPSO data sets. We identify this feature as the Bombay Plume that makes its way into the Arabian Sea from the west coast of India. A second part of this work is on the modeling of the impacts of pollutions. For this purpose we use a NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model to carry out many comparative forecast experiments that include the pollution based on MODIS and control runs that utilize climatological estimates of pollutions. The model includes both the direct and indirect effects of aerosols. We noted that: a) The Arabian Sea experience above normal rain during these periods for the MODIS experiments as compared to the control. b) The most interesting feature in these results is the documentation of a divergent outflow center, in the upper troposphere, over regions of the Arabian Sea pollutions when tropospheric aerosol heating is noted. c) An important related feature is a compensating downward lobe with a divergent inflow center over the Bay of Bengal. d) The presence of this downward lobe over the Bay of Bengal shows a reduction of winter monsoon rains over the south-east coast of India. e) We also show observational evidence of reduced winter monsoon rains over the south-east coast of India during MODIS pollution events from raingauge based estimates.

The Model of Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry (MATCH) developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is used to calculate the aerosol optical depth (AOD) over China in 2006, with the updated emission inventory of Streets (2007) and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data as its inputs. The simulation results of AOD are then compared with observational data from Chinese Sun Hazemeter Network (CSHNET), Aerosol Robotics Network (AERONET) at more than 23 stations over China, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data. The model reproduces most of the prominent features in the CSHNET observation data with an overall agreement within a factor of 2. However, there exist large differences between the simulation and the MODIS data, due to the large uncertainties in the model and the satellite data.

The TRMM 3B42 is a gridded 3 hourly data archive that is being provided to the research community at a horizontal resolution of 25 Km. These estimates are produced in four stages; (1) the microwave estimates precipitation are calibrated and combined, (2) infrared precipitation estimates are created using the calibrated microwave precipitation, (3) the microwave and IR estimates are combined, and (4) rescaling to monthly data is applied. Each precipitation field is best interpreted as the precipitation rate effective at the nominal observation time. These gridded estimates are on a 3-hour temporal resolution and a 0.25-degree by 0.25-degree spatial resolution in a global belt extending from 50°S to 50°N latitude. Given a rich data base (India Meteorological Department, IMD) of 2100 well distributed rain gauges over India (Rajeevan et. al. 2006), it is possible to reexamine the TRMM-3B42 data at a very high resolution (25 Km and 3 hours) over land areas. This is a statistical regression exercise which shows the local correction for the TRMM 3B42 rain over India. A further validation of this product is demonstrated from daily rainfall prediction using a suite of operational multimodels.