Lehnert, L.; Thies, B. & Bendix, J. (2020): <b>A new high spatial resolution low stratus/fog retrieval for the Atacama Desert</b>. <i>Remote Sensing of Environment</i> <b>236</b>, 111445.
Resource Description
Title:
A new high spatial resolution low stratus/fog retrieval for the Atacama Desert
email:
bendix <at> staff.uni-marburg.de
Deutschhausstraße 12
Room No. 02 A 48
35032 Marburg
Faculty of Geography
Germany
Abstract:
The Atacama Desert is considered as one of the driest places on Earth. At the coastline, however, small-scale fog<br/>
oases harbor a specialized vegetation and fauna, living from moisture by fog, which is used by humans to feed<br/>
water demands of industrial projects. To date, knowledge about fog and low stratus (FLS) clouds as well as their<br/>
physical properties is limited in that only local observations or spatial products from satellites with coarse<br/>
resolutions are available generally failing to capture local patterns resulting from the complex topography.<br/>
Consequently, we provide the first climatology of FLS with 30m spatial resolution based on over 400 Landsat<br/>
scenes acquired since 1986. The new product provides valuable estimates of FLS optical and micro-physical<br/>
properties. FLS over the Pacific Ocean featured cloud optical depth values around 13.5 declining over land to<br/>
4.2. Effective radii were around 5.3 μm. Liquid water path was between 71.0 − gm 2 over the Ocean and 14.9 − gm 2<br/>
over land surfaces. The climatologies of the new Landsat product were successfully validated against those of the<br/>
MODIS cloud property product over homogeneous surfaces. Over areas with heterogeneous topographies, the<br/>
new product outperforms existing ones with coarse spatial resolutions if compared against in situ measurements.<br/>
This shows the general need for cloud products with high spatial resolutions in areas where the development of<br/>
small scale clouds is favored e.g., by a complex topography leading to systematical biases in existing retrievals.
Keywords:
| Landsat | fog | Atacama Desert | Las Lomitas |
Literature type specific fields:
ARTICLE
Journal:
Remote Sensing of Environment
Volume:
236
Page Range:
111445
Publisher:
Elsevier
Metadata Provider:
Individual:
Jörg Bendix
Contact:
email:
bendix <at> staff.uni-marburg.de
Deutschhausstraße 12
Room No. 02 A 48
35032 Marburg
Faculty of Geography
Germany
