AtmoHEAD 2014: <br> Atmospheric Monitoring for High Energy AstroParticle Detectors

Comparison between stereovision and radiative methods to retrieve the cloud top height from an IR Camera on board the ISS in the frame of JEM-EUSO Mission

Not scheduled

20m

Aula Nievo (Palazzo del Bo)

Poster

Speaker

Dr Susana Briz (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Description

The main telescope of JEM-EUSO will determine Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays properties by measuring the UV fluorescence light generated in the interaction between the cosmic rays and the atmosphere. Therefore, cloud information is crucial for a proper interpretation of the data. JEM-EUSO will observe the conditions of the atmosphere and clouds in the field of view of the telescope making use of an atmospheric monitoring system, which consist of a LIDAR and an IR Camera. To retrieve the cloud top height from IR images two different methodologies will be used. The first one is based on sterovision algorithms and requires two different views of the same scene. The second one is based on the relationship between the cloud temperature and the cloud height. However the IR images just provide brightness temperatures. Therefore some algorithms have been developed to consider atmospheric effects and to retrieve the real cloud temperature from the brightness temperature. This article presents a preliminary work in which both methodologies are compared. The stereo system is provided by the two geostationary satellites MSG-8 and MSG-9. A mono-band algorithm has been developed to correct these images in order to retrieve the real cloud temperature from which the height can be calculated. MODIS images of the same area have been used to test the radiative procedure. Although MSG bands and the algorithms are not exactly the ones used by the IR Camera, this initial work is a first step to compare a very simplified version of both methodologies.