Case studies of aircraft contrails using the 1.375-micron channel and IR emission channels on MODIS

Author

Gao, Bo-Cai ; Ridgway, William R. ; Li, Rong Rong ; Yang, Ping

Author_Institution

Remote Sensing Div., Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

61

Abstract

The emissions from subsonic jet aircraft flying near the upper tropopause can lead to the formation of condensation trails (contrails). When the relative humidity near the upper troposphere is high, contrails can persist for a long time and embed in ordinary cirrus clouds. In recent years there has been interests in assessing the radiative effects of contrails on the Earth´s radiation budget. Imaging data collected with NOAA AVHRR and GOES types of satellite instruments infrequently show aircraft contrails. The 36-channel MODIS instrument on the Terra Spacecraft has improved radiometric sensitivities and spatial resolution. It makes the task of contrail detection much easier, particularly with the 1.375-micron cirrus-detecting channel. The authors present examples of contrail observations from MODIS data

Keywords

air pollution; air pollution measurement; atmospheric techniques; clouds; remote sensing; 0.645 micron; 1.375 micron; 11 micron; MODIS; air pollution; aircraft; cirrus; cloud; condensation trails; contrail; infrared imaging; measurement technique; satellite remote sensing; Aircraft; Clouds; Earth; High-resolution imaging; Humidity; Instruments; MODIS; Satellite broadcasting; Space vehicles; Terrestrial atmosphere;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2001. IGARSS '01. IEEE 2001 International

Conference_Location

Sydney, NSW

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7031-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2001.976057

Filename

976057