Deep convective cloud calibration sensitivity studies in support of radiometrically scaling GEO imagers with VIIRS

The NASA CERES SYN1deg product provides the scientific community regional hourly TOA and surface broadband fluxes and clouds. For consistent geostationary (GEO) derived fluxes and clouds the GEO imagers are radiometrically scaled to the Aqua-MODIS calibration reference. The CERES project utilizes GEO and MODIS or VIIRS analogous channel coincident, collocated, and co-angled radiance pairs as the primary method to inter-calibrate the GEO imagers. Tropical deep convective clouds (DCC) are bright, near Lambertian, top of atmosphere pseudo invariant Earth targets that do not rely on coincident ray-matched radiance pairs to radiometrically scale sensors to a common calibration reference. The DCC invariant target (DCC-IT) methodology collectively analyzes all tropical DCC identified pixel radiances by way of probability density function (PDF) distributions. Perfectly inter-calibrated sensor pairs should reveal nearly identical PDF distributions given the same DCC identification criterion. The PDF median, mean, mode, and inflection point statistics were tested as a function of DCC identification criterion using SNPP-VIIRS and Himawari-8 AHI 0.65μm channel radiances during January 2019. It was found that the PDF inflection point provided inter-calibration factors within 0.25% that were nearly independent of DCC identification criterion. The PDF median provided inter-calibration factors within 0.25% for the coldest BT and most stringent homogeneity factors The PDF mean and mode statistics were inadequate under any DCC conditions. It is critical for the DCC pixel radiances to be anisotropically corrected. The DCC-IT methodology will also be tested for other visible and SWIR bands.