Retrieval of optical and microphysical cloud properties from Meteosat SEVIRI data at night - a feasibility study based on radiative transfer calculations.

The potential of Meteosat Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) infrared (IR) bands for the retrieval of cloud optical thickness (COT) and droplet effective radius (DER) is investigated. Two radiative transfer models (RTMs) are considered: Streamer and libRadtran. The attempt is made to identify ideal channel combinations for COT and DER retrievals at night. The sensitivities of SEVIRI IR channels to COT and DER are studied. It is shown that libRadtran represents the SEVIRI IR bands more accurately than Streamer; accordingly, the most sensitive channels for DER and COT were retrieved in dependence to the surface temperature for libRadtran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]