Assessing satellite-derived net surface radiative flux in the Arctic

Abstract

Satellite-derived surface radiative fluxes have been recently improved and extended. However, the accuracy of recent satellite-derived surface radiative fluxes in the Arctic is not well characterized. Here, the authors assess the accuracy of the net surface radiative flux (NETSRF) in the Arctic, focusing on the ice-covered ocean, for three satellite products against four in situ measurements collected from different areas in the Arctic. The three satellite products are the Surface Radiation Budget project (SRB), the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), and the Extended AVHRR Polar Pathfinder version-2 (APP-x). Our comparisons suggest that: (1) in terms of the overall bias, root-mean-square error, and correlation, the NETSRF of ISCCP is closer to in situ observations than that of SRB and APP-x; (2) in terms of the diurnal variation of the biases, it is not very clear which satellite product is superior to the others; and (3) in terms of the interannual variability of the bias, the NETSRF of ISCCP is more accurate than that of SRB and APP-x. This comparison may provide useful guidance to the community as to which data-set may provide the smallest bias in NETSRF.

Keywords

• Arctic net surface radiation
• in situ measurement
• satellite retrieval