Data Definition

Data Products

SAM computes and displays Optical Depth, Angle Forward scattering, and Partial Size Distribution approximately every 10 sec

In this figure the first and the last observations from the above plots was used to fit a power-law curve to derive particle effective radius:

The Power-law slope of the particle size distribution is an indication of the relative prevalence of large particles, with shallower slopes indicating increased abundances of large particles.

Click HERE to view a video showing an example of the time-dependent aureole imagery acquired by the SAM sun tracker.

SAM computational process:

Clouds scatter solar radiation

SAM measures radiance of the solar disk with very high dynamic range producing:

Disk and Aureole Radiance Profile and

Particle Size Distribution that

are used in modelling and atmospheric calibration

The magnitude and shape of the solar aureole radiance is diagnostic of the cloud optical properties (forward scattering, FS); the measurement thereof and the optical depth (OD) are important measurements for cloud and climate research.