Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions www.atmos-meas-tech-discuss.net 1867-8610 2 6 2009 10.5194/amtd-2-3183-2009 http://www.atmos-meas-tech-discuss.net/2/3183/2009/ http://www.atmos-meas-tech-discuss.net/2/3183/2009/amtd-2-3183-2009.html http://www.atmos-meas-tech-discuss.net/2/3183/2009/amtd-2-3183-2009.pdf 3183 3220 2009-12-10 Ground-based observations for the validation of contrails and cirrus detection in satellite imagery H. Mannstein hermann.mannstein@dlr.de A. Brömser L. Bugliaro Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany UBIMET GmbH, 1200 Wien, Austria Contrails and additional cirrus clouds caused by air traffic have a potential warming effect due to their optical properties and their location in the upper troposphere. The effect of contrails is directly related to their coverage and optical properties, which can be derived from satellite observations, but considerable local and global uncertainties remain, as detection limits and efficiency are still unknown. A 6 months time series of the occurrence of high-level clouds and contrails was analysed visually from an all-sky camera situated at Oberpfaffenhofen (Southern Germany). It shows a contrail occurrence (fraction of time with visible contrails during one hour) of 21% being nearly constant over daytime and a cirrus occurrence that increases from 27% in the morning to 48% in the evening, suggesting a possible influence of air traffic or, more probably, convection. Furthermore, we compared selected all-sky camera images with data of the satellite instruments NOAA/AVHRR and MSG/SEVIRI. As expected, the fraction of contrails visible and detectable in satellite images depends highly on their width. 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