MGBARS

Two-Column Aerosol Project (TCAP): Ground-Based Radiation and Aerosol Validation Using the NOAA Mobile SURFRAD Station

1 July 2012 - 30 June 2013

Lead Scientist: Joseph Michalsky

Observatory: AMF, PVC

In preparation for the GOES-R satellite launch in 2015 a mobile field site for ground-based validation of radiation and aerosol products was developed. The instruments were much like the SURFRAD (http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/surfrad/index.html) suite of instruments with the addition of a spectral albedo capability. The goal was to validate many of the baseline and options 2 products that were being development for GOES-R. Many of these were concerned with similar problems that ARM addresses including radiation, aerosol, and cloud issues. This Cape Cod deployment of the mobile SURFRAD station concentrated on retrievals of surface radiation budget and aerosol properties including aerosol optical depth, single scattering albedo, and asymmetry parameter as a function of the wavelengths measured by the MFRSR - 415, 500, 673, 870, and 1625 nm.