Observations of Cloud and Aerosol from Gcom-c Sgli

Observing cloud and aerosol distributions and their optical and microphysical properties are one of important activities for the global climate change study, since the role of these particles and their interactive responses to the climate system are still in mystery. The Second generation Global Imager (SGLI) aboard the GCOM-C satellite is a follow-on sensor of the Global Imager (GLI) aboard the Midori-2 satellite. It is designed for globally observing clouds and aerosols targets with high-accuracy and quick recurrence. The major geophysical parameters retrieved from SGLI atmosphere’s algorithm are cloud optical thickness, cloud particle radii, cloud top temperature, cloud geometrical thickness, aerosol optical thickness, and aerosol Angstrom exponents. Cloud discriminations all of SGLI pixels will also be supplied. It is notable that the SGLI has some functions specialized for observing aerosol properties over ocean and land. They are 0.38-μm channels, multi-angles and polarization capability in 0.67 and 0.86-μm channels. This paper introduces strategy of the atmospheric observations by use of the GCOM-C/SGLI and the latest research results obtained from GLIto-SGLI scientific activities. * Corresponding author. http://www.yc.ycc.u-tokai.ac.jp/ns/nakajimalab/top_e.html