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Previous research has revealed inconsistencies between the Collection 5 (C5) calibrations of certain channels common to the Terra and Aqua MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS). To achieve consistency between the Terra and Aqua MODIS radiances used in the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Edition 4 (Ed4) cloud property retrieval system, adjustments were developed and applied to the Terra C5 calibrations for channels 1-5, 7, 20, and 26. These calibration corrections were developed independently of those used for MODIS Collection 6 (C6) data, which became available after the CERES Ed4 processing had commenced. The comparisons demonstrate that the corrections applied to the Terra C5 data for CERES Edition 4 generally resulted in Terra-Aqua radiance consistency that is as good as or better than that of the C6 datasets. The C5 adjustments resulted in more consistent Aqua and Terra cloud property retrievals than seen in the previous CERES edition. Other calibration artifacts were found in one of the corrected channels and in some of the uncorrected thermal channels after Ed4 began. Where corrections were neither developed nor applied, some artifacts are likely to have been introduced into the Ed4 cloud property record. For example, the degradation in the Aqua MODIS 0.65-μm channel in both the C5 and C6 datasets affects trends in cloud optical depth retrievals. Thus, despite the much-improved consistency achieved for the Terra and Aqua datasets in Ed4, the CERES Ed4 cloud property datasets should be used cautiously for cloud trend studies because of those remaining calibration artifacts.

Two kinds of radar-lidar synergy cloud products are compared and analyzed in this study; CERES-CALIPSO-CloudSat-MODIS (CCCM) product and CloudSat radar-lidar (RL) product such as GEOPROF-LIDAR and FLXHR-LIDAR. Compared to GEOPROF-LIDAR, CCCM has more low-level (< 1 km) clouds over tropical oceans because CCCM uses a more relaxed threshold of Cloud-Aerosol Discrimination (CAD) score for Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) vertical feature mask (VFM) product. In contrast, GEOPROF-LIDAR has more mid-level (1-8 km) clouds than CCCM at high latitudes (> 40°). The difference occurs when hydrometeors are detected by CALIPSO lidar but are undetected by CloudSat radar, which may be related to precipitation. In the comparison of cloud radiative effects (CREs), global mean differences between CCCM and FLXHR-LIDAR are mostly smaller than 5 W m -2 , while noticeable regional differences are found over three regions. First, CCCM has larger shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) CREs than FXLHR-LIDAR along the west coasts of Africa and America. This might be caused by missing small-scale marine boundary layer clouds in FLXHR-LIDAR. Second, over tropical oceans where precipitation frequently occurs, SW and LW CREs from FLXHR-LIDAR are larger than those from CCCM partly because FLXHR-LIDAR algorithm includes the contribution of rainwater to total liquid water path. Third, over midlatitude storm-track regions, CCCM shows larger SW and LW CREs than FLXHR-LIDAR, due to CCCM biases caused by larger cloud optical depth or higher cloud effective height.

How clouds will respond to Earth's warming climate is the greatest contributor to intermodel spread of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). Although global climate models (GCMs) generally agree that the total cloud feedback is positive, GCMs disagree on the magnitude of cloud feedback. Satellite instruments with sufficient accuracy to detect climate change-scale trends in cloud properties will provide improved confidence in our understanding of the relationship between observed climate change and cloud property trends, thus providing essential information to the effort to better constrain ECS. However, a robust framework is needed to determine what constitutes sufficient or necessary accuracy for such an achievement. Our study presents and applies such an accuracy framework to quantify the impact of absolute calibration accuracy requirements on climate change-scale trend detection times for cloud amount, height, optical thickness, and effective radius. The accuracy framework used here was previously applied to SW cloud radiative effect and global mean surface temperature in a study that demonstrated the importance of high instrument accuracy to constrain trend detection times for essential climate variables (ECVs). This paper expands upon these previous studies by investigating cloud properties, demonstrating the versatility of applying this framework to other ECVs and the implications of the results within climate science studies.