Increasing the spatial resolution of cloud property retrievals from Meteosat SEVIRI by use of its high-resolution visible channel: implementation and examples

Abstract. The modification of an existing cloud property retrieval scheme for the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) instrument on board geostationary Meteosat satellites is described to utilize its high-resolution visible (HRV) channel increasing spatial resolution physical outputs. This results in products with a nadir 1×1 km2 compared standard 3×3 offered by narrowband channels. improvement thus greatly reduces gap between current polar-orbiting meteorological satellite imagers. In first processing step, cloudiness determined from HRV observations threshold-based masking algorithm. Subsequently, linear model that links 0.6 µm, 0.8 reflectances provides constraint incorporate high-frequency component into optical depth. implementation method described, including ancillary datasets used. It demonstrated omission variations cloud-absorbing 1.6 µm comparatively large uncertainties retrieved effective radius, likely due mismatch resolutions. A newly developed downscaling reflectance therefore applied mitigate effects this scale mismatch. Benefits increased resulting SEVIRI are three example applications: (i) convective field, it shown significantly better agreement distributions depth collocated MODIS achieved. (ii) temporal evolution properties growing storm at resolutions compared, illustrating improved contrast growth signatures use channel. (iii) An surface solar irradiance, properties, shown, which helps capture spatiotemporal variability induced clouds. These suggest incorporating has potential improving Meteosat-based several application domains.