A Cloud Vertical Structure Optimization Algorithm Combining FY-4A and DSCOVR Satellite Data

Clouds are important for Earth’s energy budget and water cycles, and precisely characterizing their vertical structure is essential for understanding their impact. Although passive remote sensing offers broad coverage and high temporal resolution, sensor and algorithmic limitations impede the accurate depiction of cloud vertical profiles. To improve estimates of their key structural parameters, e.g., cloud top height (CTH) and cloud vertical extent (CVE), we propose a multi-source collaborative optimization algorithm. The algorithm synergizes the wide-coverage FY-4A (FengYun-4A) and DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) cloud products with high-precision CloudSat vertical profile data and establishes LightGBM-based CTH/CVE optimization models. The models effectively reduce systematic errors in the FY-4A and DSCOVR cloud products, lowering the CTH Mean Absolute Error (MAE) to 1.8 km for multi-layer clouds, an improvement of 4–8 km over the original. The CVE MAEs for single- and multi-layer clouds are ~2.5 km. Some bias remains in complex cases, e.g., multi-layer thin clouds at low altitudes, and error tracing analysis suggests this may be related to cloud layer number misclassification. The proposed algorithm facilitates daytime near-hourly cloud retrievals over China and neighboring regions.