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Clouds play an important role in the solar and terrestrial radiation transport in the atmosphere of the Earth. They influence water and energy exchange between atmosphere, ocean and land, and, therefore, climate on our planet. And yet their microphysical, geometrical, and optical characteristics are poorly known. This is especially true for crystalline clouds, which are composed of ice crystals of different shapes, structure and size.
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Our task is to quantify the influence of clouds properties on the Earth radiation budget and climate change. For this we need to study microphysical and optical characteristics of clouds on a global scale. This is possible only with the use of modern satellite technology. Many teams world-wide are engaged in these activities (see, e.g., the tutorial). All these efforts are co-ordinated by the space agencies, like ESA, NASA and JAXA.
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The aerosol and cloud research group at the Bremen University is engaged in cloud studies using optical sensors data from different satellite instruments (e. g., GLI, POLDER, MODIS, SeaWiFS) with a special emphasis on the data from SCIAMACHY instrument on board of ENVISAT. The main theoretical basis for our research is the radiative transfer theory (S. Chandrasekhar, Radiative transfer, N. Y. : Dover, 1961) and electromagnetic scattering theory ( H. C. van de Hulst, Light scattering by small particles, N. Y.: Dover, 1981).
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