Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2025

Presentation information

[E] Oral

A (Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences ) » A-AS Atmospheric Sciences, Meteorology & Atmospheric Environment

[A-AS07] The Beginning of Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Sciences with EarthCARE

Fri. May 30, 2025 10:45 AM - 12:15 PM Exhibition Hall Special Setting (5) (Exhibition Hall 7&8, Makuhari Messe)

convener:Takuji Kubota(Earth Observation Research Center,Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Hajime Okamoto(Kyushu University), Masaki Satoh(Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo), Nobuhiro Takahashi(Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, Nagoya University), Chairperson:Nobuhiro Takahashi(Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, Nagoya University), Takuji Kubota(Earth Observation Research Center,Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)


11:15 AM - 11:30 AM

[AAS07-09] Early Phase Results and Validation of JAXA EarthCARE MSI Level 2 Cloud Products

*Minrui Wang1, Takashi Y. Nakajima1 (1.Tokai University Research and Information Center)

Keywords:Satellite obversion, EarthCARE, Whole-sky camera image, Cloud optical thickness, Cloud cover

Our cloud phase & cloud properties algorithm for Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer/multi-spectral imager (EarthCARE/MSI) L2 cloud products has been updated to v1.0 by early 2025. During the updates of the algorithm from v0.4 to v1.0, we fixed several bugs and applying new LUTs for both water and ice cloud retrievals.
After the launch of EarthCARE which scheduled in May of 2024, we started the validation of MSI L2 cloud products based on the early phase version (vAa-vAf) of MSI L1 cloud data. Firstly, the cloud phase algorithm (CLAUDIA) cloud cover validation used three ground-based sky camera system at Shibuya (Tokyo), Kumamoto (Kyushu), and Iriomote island (Okinawa). We developed a machine learning based algorithm of the sky camera (2-pi camera) images to discriminate cloud cover with clear area. Logistic regression method and XGBoost were used in our algorithm, and our results from the algorithm have shown very high accuracy on images of both day and night. Besides, our results of confusion matrix, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) and Area Under the Curve (AUC) also have shown high precision of the cloud cover discrimination algorithm. For better cloud monitoring in the urban area of Tokyo, we added a new whole-sky camera system (Prede PSV-50) in early September 2024, which has a foldable shadow blade inside of the dome to shade the sun. During nighttime, the shadow blade is folded automatically. In the future, we are planning to add this new camera system to Iriomote as well.
In this presentation, we are going to show some early phase results of the JAXA EarthCARE MSI L2 Cloud Products, including both warm water clouds and ice clouds. Meanwhile, the detailed results of MSI L2 cloud cover validation, as well as the initial results of MSI L2 cloud optical thickness validation with MODIS-Aqua cloud products MYD06, will be shown in the presentation.