Cloud drop effective radius Measurements Made by Earth Observation Satellites

Cloud Drop Effective Radius Measurement Instruments

Measurements > Atmosphere > Cloud particle properties and profile > Cloud drop effective radius

Measurement Definition: Size distribution of liquid water drops, assimilated to spheres of the same volume. Considered as both a 3D field throughout the troposphere and a 2D field at the top of the cloud surface - Measuring Units μm, Uncertainty Units μm

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ECV Cloud Properties

Instrument	Status/ Accuracy	Instrument Description	Measurement Technology	Timeline
ABI	Operational	Detects clouds, cloud properties, water vapour, land and sea surface temperatures, dust, aerosols, volcanic ash, fires, total ozone, snow and ice cover, vegetation index.	n/a
AMI	Operational	Continuous monitoring capability for the near real-time generation of high-resolution meteorological products and long-term change analysis of land/sea surface temperature and cloud coverage.	n/a
FCI	Operational	Measurements of cloud cover, cloud top height, precipitation, cloud motion, vegetation, radiation fluxes, convection, air mass analysis, cirrus cloud discrimination, tropopause monitoring, stability monitoring, total ozone and sea surface temperature.	n/a
MODIS	Operational	Data on biological and physical processes on the surface of the Earth and in the lower atmosphere, and on global dynamics. Surface temperatures of land and ocean, chlorophyll fluorescence, land cover measurements, cloud cover (day and night).	n/a
GXI	Being developed	Detects clouds, cloud properties, water vapour, land and sea surface temperatures, dust, aerosols, volcanic ash, fires, total ozone, snow and ice cover, vegetation index.	n/a
METimage	Being developed	Operational multi spectral imager for meteorological EPS-SG VIS/IR Imaging Mission (VII): imagery data for global and regional NWP, NWC, and climate monitoring with information on LST, SST, clouds coverage, height and micro-physics, land surfaces (vegetation, snow/ice, fire), water vapour column, aerosol and atmospheric motion vectors. Provides collocated cloud mask, height & characterisation as well as intra-pixel heterogeneity to other EPS-SG missions (with larger footprint).	n/a
Fourier Transform Spectrometer	Approved	Measure across Earth’s entire far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum	n/a
MSI (EarthCARE)	Approved	Observation of cloud properties and aerosol (aerosols to be confirmed).	n/a