SIMULATION OF CLOUD'S VISIBLE REFLECTION USING MODIS CLOUD PRODUCTS

Radiative transfer modeling of ice clouds is developed. Ice clouds located near tropopause reflect most of sunlight, thus atmospheric and surface effects can be minimized. Cloud properties such as cloud optical thickness (COT) and effective radius are important parameters to determine the magnitude of reflectance, while atmospheric and surface parameters rarely affect reflectance value. For selected homogeneous cloud pixels of MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) observation, reflectances are calculated using MODIS cloud products as inputs of radiative transfer model (RTM). For three types of phase function (Henyey-Greenstein, Garcia-Siewert, Baum) calculated reflectances are compared with observations for validation. All cases show linear relationship between simulated values and measured values, however each represent different bias and slope. The result shows that phase function determine angular distribution of reflectance.