Remote sensing of cirrus cloud optical thickness and effective particle size for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Visible/infrared imager Radiometer Suite: sensitivity to instrument noise and uncertainties in environmental parameters

We describe sensitivity studies on the remote sensing of cirrus cloud optical thickness and effective particle size using the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite 0.67-, 1.24-, 1.61-, and 2.25-microm reflectances and thermal IR 3.70- and 10.76-microm radiances. To investigate the accuracy and precision of the solar and IR retrieval methods subject to instrument noise and uncertainties in environmental parameters, we carried out signal-to-noise ratio tests as well as the error budget study, where we used the University of California at Los Angeles line-by-line equivalent radiative transfer model to generate radiance tables for synthetic retrievals. The methodology and results of these error analyses are discussed.